What I could have said

Last time I wrote I was sitting amid piles of clothes waiting to be packed. Tonight, a week and two days later (oh dear!), I have barely finished unpacking those same piles. Of course, Mom and I have been home in Oregon for three days already. But, unlike my Mother the Mightily Organized, I do not possess an innate desire to unpack and sort and fold and put away all my clothes and accessories the moment I arrive home from a trip.

My unpacking method is a bit more subdued—I tend to pass by my half-opened suitcase, abandoned unceremoneously on the floor, ten or twelve times, thinking that if I will only believe hard enough, my shirts and socks and pants will grow legs and crawl themselves back into their appropriate drawers.

Suffice to say, my room stays messier longer than Mom’s.

I meant to write a blog entry every night that I was in California. But every night Aunt Annette and I ended up talking or surfing the web together or watching a movie into the wee hours of the morning. (Or all three, often. ) I decided that quality time with my Aunt (who I hardly ever get to see) was more important than regular blog entries. (Besides, one can never see A Knight’s Tale too many times!)

On the first night (Sunday night) I wanted to tell you about the long car ride down during which we only stopped once and during which we had to endure an audio book that sounded like it had been recorded by a chipmunk on crack.

On Monday I wanted to let you know about my early 18th birthday present from Grandma, which was a new lens for my camera (picked out by my uncle the photography buff)! (It was an EFS 17-85 mm f/4-5.6 IS USM, for those who care. They also gave me a UV filter, a polarizing filter, and a lens hood to fit the new lens.)

Tuesday I would have written that I loved my new lens and that we visited the beautiful mission at Santa Clara University to take pictures, but that I made the mistake of switching to RAW format on my camera for half the afternoon, only to discover that I could not download the RAW pictures onto Aunt Annette’s computer with any of the software that she had (or if I could I couldn’t figure out how).

On Wednesday I would have mentioned our visit to Hakone Gardens in Saratoga, and maybe Uncle Tom’s book on portraiture that I found very helpful to peruse.

And on Thursday, perhaps I would have told you about the haircut that Aunt Annette gave me, or the photoshoot of me that she orchestrated in order to practice lighting and camera operation. (She is thinking about getting into professional photography… professional pet photography, to be exact, but I am choosing not to draw any unsettling conclusions about her choice of model on this particular day. )

But though I would have mentioned all of those things, you all probably would have seen right through them if I had not admitted what was really on my mind: my grandma.

In a lot of ways, this trip down to see her was not as difficult as I imagined it would be in my exhausted pessimism the night before we left. Imagination is often worse than fact in these situations. But, it was still plenty hard.

I think this anecdote sums up the experience pretty well:

One evening, we were stopping by a pizza place to get dinner. Mom and Uncle Tom had walked inside to get the pizza, and grandma and I sat outside in my family’s station wagon with the windows rolled down. For the first few minutes we sat there in the slightly awkward silence that has come to characterize my time with Grandma in the last few years. Whether because she is lost in her own thoughts or because she is too disengaged from her surroundings to make meaningful conversation, I don’t know. But I made a few attempts nonetheless.

“It sure is hot out.”

“I wonder how much longer they are going to be with the pizza!”

She would chuckle a bit at these pronouncements, but then she started to become more engaged in our conversation.

“I like your shoes!” she announced at one point, looking at my tennis shoes.

“I bought these shoes for work, because I have to wear close-toed shoes there, even in the summer time!” We both chuckled. She started asking me questions about work, and I explained my job. Then we talked about some of the people going by the window and a few of the shops we could see.

Among the many things about my grandmother’s body that are shutting down, her memory is failing. I knew this. I have known this for quite some time. But I could not stop myself, knowing that this might be one of the last times I would ever talk with her, from bringing up things that used to be meaningful to both of us—phrases that she used to use, and stories that she used to tell.

After a remark about food, I said, “You know, Grandma, you always used to say that you were not a picky eater; you always said you would eat anything except snails and frogs’ legs!” I had heard this phrase at least once a visit from her my entire life. “And it’s still true!” she said through her almost-toothless grin. It hurt, because now she can only eat liquids and she rejects most things set in front of her. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I said, “do you remember Brian (my brother) when he was a little boy? Do you remember him splashing through the mud puddles?” She had told me the story of Brian in his slicker and boots splashing through the mud puddles so many times that I knew it by heart. Now, her eyes became distant as she fought to bring this memory back to the surface. “Yes,” she said, finally. It hurt, because I did not know if she was telling the truth, and this had always been one of her dearest memories. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I tried next, “do you remember when you and I would go shopping together? Don’t you remember, we called our outings “adventures”?” Before my grandmother’s health declined so much, she would take me on a trip to the mall every time she visited. It was a highlight of her trip. This time she was really struggling to remember. “Okay, if you say so,” she said. And it really hurt, because I knew she did not remember, and those times together had been precious. But I was still glad I said it.

“Grandma,” I said, “you have been a fantastic grandma. I’m so glad you are mine.” She turned and looked at me. For a moment, her eyes were not distant or staring. They were fixed on mine with a clarity I had not seen in them for quite some time. I saw in them a spark of the stubborn, spirited personality that has carried her through life and made her the person that she is. “Thank you, Sweetie!” she said, sounding genuinely surprised and grateful. And that moment hurt and was sweet with all the bittersweetness I could bear. But I was very glad I said it.

I may not have typed out all the stories and emails that I meant to while I was in California. But, in real life, I think I said exactly what I needed to say.

Posted on Tuesday, August 15th, 2006 at 1:19 am.
Belongs with: Things to think about, Happening Things, Nostalgic Things.
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