June
2015
Grandma died three weeks ago. I attended both of her
funerals, one in Utah, one in Oregon. Neither one was particularly sad, as
Grandma had lived with Parkinson’s for some time, and most of her relatives and
friends had looked on as she lost the ability to walk, and only made it from
her bed to the front room by means of a few strong arms, a hoist, and a
wheelchair. Everyone at the funeral agreed, though, that her smile and
enthusiasm remained.
Amy and I visited her a few times in the last year and a half.
We even had dinner with her and my aunt’s family at the end of January 2014.
Grandma requested that Aunt Becky make her certain things for her birthday
meal, including orange Jell-O salad with green bell pepper and ground black
pepper. I managed to eat a small serving of the Jell-O, but Grandma ate everything
with relish (though not literally). Grandma liked Amy, but I think we both
frustrated her a little because neither one of us had learned that the only way
to make her hear us was by shouting our conversation. Her strength waned, and
she seemed exhausted every time we visited.
We visited Grandma over Spring Break in March of this year.
She was tired and so were we, having just flown back from San Francisco where
we’d spent the break with Amy’s aunt and uncle in Danville. We stayed an hour
or so, and Grandma held Max for much of that time. That was the last time we
saw her before her viewing in Provo on June 3, when I stood with my mom in
front of her oak casket, which weighed, as I and seven other relatives later found
out as we hefted it into the hearse, about as much as Volkswagen Beetle.
I wasn’t as close to my grandma as many of my cousins were,
but I’ve had my share of memories too, like the time I was on Grandma’s team in
a game of Scattergories. When we lost I blamed it on her and said, “Don’t play
with Grandma. She’s not smart enough!” Maybe tact is a gene that skips
generations. Recently some of the more poignant moments I’ve shared with
Grandma came over the phone instead of in person. I never have liked phones. I’m
actually kind of afraid of them to the point that any unknown caller—and some
known—will always go to voice mail. But not everything can happen face to face,
and for some things email is too impersonal. So, I called her.
July
2013
Amy and I stepped off the deck into the house after climbing
three flights of stairs from the soft sand of the Topsail Island beach. We held
hands as we stepped through the sliding doors into the low light of the dining
area; the synthetic sparkle of the $15 cubic zirconium I had given her less
than a week before, in lieu of the actual engagement ring which had not yet
arrived at the jeweler’s store, was reduced to a dull glow. The room was full
of family members moving and chatting excitedly in anticipation of homemade
pizza and soda. I shed my flip-flops by the mat and excused myself from the buzz.
I went down one flight to the privacy of Amy’s bedroom and
shut the door. The day Amy and I flew out to North Carolina for a family
vacation in which I would meet all of her family in person for the first time,
I had run the two miles to Kohl’s first thing, arriving at the store just a few
minutes before it opened. I searched the pile of white boxes containing passable
costume jewelry and by a miracle found the lone size 6 ring that Amy might
actually wear without blushing. As a result, I had only told some of my
immediate family that I was getting married. Grandma was one of those who had
not heard the news, and Mom insisted that I call and tell her personally.
I dialed Aunt Becky’s phone number and asked for Grandma.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Grandma! This is Jeff, your grandson.”
We chatted for just a minute before I told her that I was
calling from North Carolina.
“What are you doing there?”
“I’m meeting Amy’s family because Amy and I are getting
married.”
Without hesitation, she responded, “Are you joking?”
Not exactly what I would call the ideal response, but maybe
she had assumed that I, an aged man of 28, might never get married. I reassured
her that this was not a joke and that Amy and I were actually engaged. After
some effort, I mostly convinced her that I spoke true, although the last thing
she said before “I love you, goodbye” was “Are you sure you’re not joking?”
After we said hung up, I put my blue flip phone back into the pocket of my
cargo shorts and rejoined the others upstairs.
September
2014
Amy was four months pregnant with our son and teaching three
classes at Idaho State University. My siblings and parents knew, but the time
had come to let Grandma know. Amy sat in her office planning a lesson and
grading online discussion posts, while I went out and sat on the steps of the
Charles Kegel (yes, Kegel) building and called her. I prepared for a debate,
but what I got was much different.
Her voice drifted from the receiver, monotone and tired, a
kind of tired that pervades each bone, tissue, nerve ending, and cell. A kind
of tired that no amount of sleep can remedy.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Grandma. This is Jeff, your grandson.”
It was our usual song, but the key had changed.
“Grandma, I was just calling to tell you that Amy and I are
having a baby.”
Pause.
“Well, that’s fine, dear.”
Her tone troubled me. I had hoped that she would be excited
for us, excited to be having another grandbaby, though in my heart I knew why
her tone conveyed no perceptible intonations of joy, but instead a kind of
passive acceptance, the way a terminal patient might accept a diagnosis. I
repeated the news to see if I could provoke more enthusiasm, but the answer was
the same: “That’s fine, dear.”
May 2015
Amy and I were about to go over to our friends’ house for a
late-afternoon Sunday dinner on May 24 when my sister Celeste called to tell me the news. Grandma had suffered a transient ischemic attack or mini-stroke about two weeks prior, and although,
according to Aunt Becky, she was eating more than she had been, Grandma had
slipped into unconsciousness earlier that day (May 24) and was still unresponsive. Celeste
had talked to Mom, and they seemed to think that Grandma didn’t have long.
Celeste told me that if I wanted to say goodbye, now was the time to do that. I
didn’t want to talk to Grandma because I knew she couldn’t respond anymore, and
the thought of speaking to silence unnerved me. I did want to see how Mom was
doing, so I called her.
Almost as soon as she had me on the line, she said, “Here, I
will put you on speaker phone and you can talk to Grandma.”
I could hear her footsteps as she walked over to the bedside
of the unconscious woman. Amy stood right by me beside the kitchen sink as I
thought about what I might say.
“Go ahead,” my mom said.
I drew a breath.
“Hi Grandma. This is your grandson Jeff.”
I paused, then continued.
“I don’t really know what to say, except we love you and I’m
really happy you’ll be with Grandpa soon and Max is lying on the couch and he’s
looking around and I love you…”
At first, I felt kind of embarrassed as I rambled out my
feelings. But as those jumbled words poured out of my mouth and into the phone,
I had a moment of clarity. I might be talking gibberish to my sleeping grandma,
but I knew the truth of my words. Despite never feeling the proximity to her
that many others had to her, somewhere in that silence tinged with cell phone
static, I knew that I did, in fact, love her.
