Thursday, December 2, 2010

Last days

I used to hold my grandmother’s hands, usually when crossing the street. But last night she held mine, both of them, as I leaned awkwardly over the hospital bed. Her grip was surprisingly strong. I looked down at the nearly translucent skin on her hands, which are bruised and scabbed from a fall, and remembered them tanned and covered in mango juice. My grandmother’s hands always bring the same image. She is standing in front of her sink with a freshly picked mango cradled in her hand, and a paring knife in the other. Ribbons of yellow-orange mango peel are curling into the sink, and juice is streaming down her hands. I could be anywhere, perhaps standing behind her, or maybe watching from the screened porch, a skinny kid lying on a yellow chaise lounge, surrounded by tropical flowers and writing the memoirs of a ten-year-old in her head.

Mangoes don’t grow in Indiana, where I grew up, and where Grandma was born a few days before women belatedly secured their right to vote. But they were abundant on the trees in her Florida backyard. It was there I learned to eat them, usually plucked straight off the tree, because Grandma disdained any non-local mango. “They pick them green,” she said of the fruit shipped from elsewhere. “And the flavor is awful.” She’s right, of course. I can buy them at an international market ten minutes from my house these days, but the taste and texture isn’t the same.

The mango juice has long since been washed from her hands, and they intermittently squeeze mine when the pain comes. Her face is a mess, her lips a jumble of scabs, dried blood and bruising. This is what happens when you have dementia, and you forget that you’re recovering from a hip replacement, and you try to walk without assistance. You fall down. And that fall cascades into a stroke – or perhaps vice versa, the doctors are not entirely sure – and you end up gripping your granddaughter’s hands in a hospital bed.

I visit her again the next night, and she doesn’t know who I am. At first she thinks she’s back at her assisted living facility and I’m the lady who takes her dinner order. I’ve heard about this, about what a bruising experience it is for the formerly familiar not to be recognized by their loved one. But it doesn’t feel that way to me. Because the truth is, I don’t recognize her, either. I still smile. I still speak gently. But I know it sounds stilted and inauthentic, because for the life of me, there is nothing about the lady in the bed that seems familiar to me. And this feels like a terrible betrayal of everything she gave me, which was generous beyond measure. But I can’t change it. All I can do is continue to pretend. And so I do.

6 comments:

  1. All of my best to you in these unbelievably difficult times of our lives. Growing old is tough. Being younger and watching someone grow old is one of life's worst experiences.

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  2. Thanks. I know you just went through it with your MIL. It's staggering.

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  3. Jennifer: Really beautifully put. I felt the same way about my Grandma. Her descent was long. And, in the end, though I still loved her -- was still her "birthday boy," a name she'd always called me because we shared a birthday, obviously -- she was no longer "my" Grandma. I think that's a natural feeling.

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  4. Jen, I'm so sorry about your grandma and her situation. The reality of it, so beautifully put with your words, is heartbreaking. The only encouragement I can offer up as you journey with your grandma is this--she may not remember, but you do. And as your post reflects, you are remembering for the both of you what was before and what has been lost. I remember thinking something similar as I held my Aunt Jo's hand hours before she passed, and wondered. where is my Aunt Jo? Here in my heart was the answer. That's where your grandma is too--the one you loved and watched peel mangoes.

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  5. Beautifully written Jen. Even when the eyes don't recognize the person, the heart does. When my dad was confused and lost, I sat and held his hand and he knew I was someone he loved. That's all that matters. And there are those blessed moments of clarity.

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  6. You write so beautifully. My heart goes out to you and your grandmother at this hard time. She may not know who you are sometimes, but she will still feel your love.

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