12:06 a.m. - 2008-12-14
Visit with Gigi
Went to see my grandmother today, as always with fear and trepidation. As we entered, as usual, the array of nodding seniors sat staring blankly into the distance. Lively Christmas music sounded out the holidays while I couldn't help but think these people found little joy in the tunes that surrounded them. We went upstairs and greeted Gigi. Diana brought her a loaf of date nut bread and we gave her that along with a festive brooch. We chatted for a while, but the conversation is always the same. She hates being there (although she looks better than she's looked in years), everyone is stealing her money, and the few questions she has are repeated over and over. Diana is much better at handling all this than I am. I just kept looking out the window thinking that the real world was just steps away and she IS truly locked behind the walls in the place she calls her "prison". I couldn't help but wonder where I will be when I am in my elder years....who will come to visit me, if anyone. My visits are nearly always brief. We meet the same people coming and going and she continues to introduce me as if we've never met before. I hear the same stories and complaints. If there were just ONE story that was about anything other than how horrible my mother is for putting her there and leaving her there, or how much money she's lost (misplaced?). And yet I remember the days when I joyfully went to stay with her and she and I talked for hours about nothing much at all. She cooked wonderful Sunday dinners and had the most delightful yard with all kinds of fruit trees and spots underneath them just made for curling up with a good book. I remember McDonalds and Christmas Eve and "escaping" to her house when I was fighting so badly with my parents that they didn't know what to do with me any more. I need to remember these things when I'm THERE, and not just when I am away from her. I need to remember that we all will pass through that door, or at least the ones of us who are lucky enough to make it will. And I need to be grateful that for this day, I am not there.
