Weekend plans
Grandmother and Grandfather have been living in a house in Lakeland, FL, since this time last year, I think. Somewhere around that time, give or take. I can't pin point the exact date of their move because I was feeling pretty crazy at the end of the year last year trying to move across the country on short notice. In fact, I still feel a strange constriction in my throat and sometimes my stomach knots up when I think about where I am: "Oh! I have to move!" I think to myself, not remembering that I have already moved and purchased a home. Moving across the country is traumatic and affects me in profound ways.
Nevertheless, arsemuffin and I will be driving down to Lakeland on Saturday to see Grandmother, who has lost her husband, my grandfather, and is not alone, per se, but alone enough. Sandy, my Dad's older sister, is there, as she and Grandmother and Grandfather bought homes a few doors down from each other in Lakeland. But the purchase of these "retirement" homes was a bit too little too late. By the time Grandmother and Grandfather moved down there, they needed assisted living care, not a cozy home in a retirement community. Hospice helps, but only so much. Soon Sandy made the decision to get some help and found a nursing home for both of her parents to live together. Grandmother, after losing her husband on Monday morning, is somewhere in between the hospital and the nursing home. Each day brings a new plan regarding where she will be and what kind of care she requires. So I am going down to Lakeland on Saturday and she may be in a nursing home or she may be in a hospital.
For me, these are all things I have been through before in some fashion. My mom's dad lived in our house while he was ill from old age. arsemuffin's mom was ill for some time due to her brain cancer (and tumor removal) and she also received some type of help. For me, Grandmother and Grandfather's situation was, as much as it can be, rather ideal because their children were there to care for them and ensure that they would be treated properly and receive good medical attention.
I want to go see Grandmother to help her feel like her family is around her and that she's still cared for. I want her to feel comforted, and in some, small way, I can provide that. For most of my life other family members have been in closer proximity to my grandparents. Now I'm the closest, and I can undertake those quick, weekend visits instead of others who have to travel farther. I am glad to do this.
But I'm not looking forward to it.
It's hard to stare death in the face and not see yourself in the person who is dying. And I notice that the older I get, the more someone else's death reminds me of my own mortality. I try to subdue this narcissism, however, and concentrate on the task at hand: comforting those who need it. I'm pretty sure I haven't become more narcissistic as I've aged, but I think this situation is popping up more often because death is actually a blip on my radar screen, now. Sometimes I think to myself, "So if I live to be 80 years old, how many years do I have left?" It's an odd question and I ask it of myself in the same way I'd silently question, "Okay, how many hours of overtime do I have to work this week in order to make up for the day I'm taking off next week?" It's fantastically pragmatic and without feeling that I ask myself, "How many more years do I have left?"
There's this black and white print I've had for some time of a woman walking down a street. She's getting heckled by men and she's the only female in the shot. It's a fabulous depiction of the acute, yet controlled, anxiety one can experience at a moment's notice. I've been feeling this feeling softly, but often, in little blips and bleeps as I've been reacting to Grandfather's death. It's an odd correlation to make--from the photograph to Grandfather's death--and I don't quite understand it yet. Perhaps the feeling has to do with the sense of loss I have over not only losing the person, but also losing the fantasy that his life allowed many of my family members to easily maintain.
My Dad's Dad and my Mom's Dad went to college together, as I'm sure you've heard me explain before. Neither man came from a typically rich or cosmopolitan background. The other people who attended their college, Duke, were a great deal better off. So both of my Grandfathers were assigned to the same room--roommate selection obviously had something to do with social class. Because these two men met in the late 1920s and stayed in touch, my parents met, and so on. This amazing, unique, and quite miraculous family history was mythologized and passed on to me quite often. The fantasy of this life and how it came to be was almost guaranteed to be leaned upon as a conversational departure every time I visited either set of grandparents or spoke with Mom or Dad about their parents.
Grandma died in 1979, Grandpa in 1996. The link to that world pretty much existed in an attenuated fashion only via my Grandfather, so his death marks a fissure to the access of that fantasy. No longer the body or the site of connection, but now only memory. My memory, pretty much, which is rather ridiculous since by blood I am related, but in consciousness, at least in terms of this fantasy, I barely touched it.
Nevertheless, arsemuffin and I will be driving down to Lakeland on Saturday to see Grandmother, who has lost her husband, my grandfather, and is not alone, per se, but alone enough. Sandy, my Dad's older sister, is there, as she and Grandmother and Grandfather bought homes a few doors down from each other in Lakeland. But the purchase of these "retirement" homes was a bit too little too late. By the time Grandmother and Grandfather moved down there, they needed assisted living care, not a cozy home in a retirement community. Hospice helps, but only so much. Soon Sandy made the decision to get some help and found a nursing home for both of her parents to live together. Grandmother, after losing her husband on Monday morning, is somewhere in between the hospital and the nursing home. Each day brings a new plan regarding where she will be and what kind of care she requires. So I am going down to Lakeland on Saturday and she may be in a nursing home or she may be in a hospital.
For me, these are all things I have been through before in some fashion. My mom's dad lived in our house while he was ill from old age. arsemuffin's mom was ill for some time due to her brain cancer (and tumor removal) and she also received some type of help. For me, Grandmother and Grandfather's situation was, as much as it can be, rather ideal because their children were there to care for them and ensure that they would be treated properly and receive good medical attention.
I want to go see Grandmother to help her feel like her family is around her and that she's still cared for. I want her to feel comforted, and in some, small way, I can provide that. For most of my life other family members have been in closer proximity to my grandparents. Now I'm the closest, and I can undertake those quick, weekend visits instead of others who have to travel farther. I am glad to do this.
But I'm not looking forward to it.
It's hard to stare death in the face and not see yourself in the person who is dying. And I notice that the older I get, the more someone else's death reminds me of my own mortality. I try to subdue this narcissism, however, and concentrate on the task at hand: comforting those who need it. I'm pretty sure I haven't become more narcissistic as I've aged, but I think this situation is popping up more often because death is actually a blip on my radar screen, now. Sometimes I think to myself, "So if I live to be 80 years old, how many years do I have left?" It's an odd question and I ask it of myself in the same way I'd silently question, "Okay, how many hours of overtime do I have to work this week in order to make up for the day I'm taking off next week?" It's fantastically pragmatic and without feeling that I ask myself, "How many more years do I have left?"
There's this black and white print I've had for some time of a woman walking down a street. She's getting heckled by men and she's the only female in the shot. It's a fabulous depiction of the acute, yet controlled, anxiety one can experience at a moment's notice. I've been feeling this feeling softly, but often, in little blips and bleeps as I've been reacting to Grandfather's death. It's an odd correlation to make--from the photograph to Grandfather's death--and I don't quite understand it yet. Perhaps the feeling has to do with the sense of loss I have over not only losing the person, but also losing the fantasy that his life allowed many of my family members to easily maintain.
My Dad's Dad and my Mom's Dad went to college together, as I'm sure you've heard me explain before. Neither man came from a typically rich or cosmopolitan background. The other people who attended their college, Duke, were a great deal better off. So both of my Grandfathers were assigned to the same room--roommate selection obviously had something to do with social class. Because these two men met in the late 1920s and stayed in touch, my parents met, and so on. This amazing, unique, and quite miraculous family history was mythologized and passed on to me quite often. The fantasy of this life and how it came to be was almost guaranteed to be leaned upon as a conversational departure every time I visited either set of grandparents or spoke with Mom or Dad about their parents.
Grandma died in 1979, Grandpa in 1996. The link to that world pretty much existed in an attenuated fashion only via my Grandfather, so his death marks a fissure to the access of that fantasy. No longer the body or the site of connection, but now only memory. My memory, pretty much, which is rather ridiculous since by blood I am related, but in consciousness, at least in terms of this fantasy, I barely touched it.