For quite some time now, I'm talking years, I have been denying myself the emotional reality of my grandma's Alzheimer's. In my mind I keep reverting the image of her back to when she was living in Sandy Cove, lively, sassy, always down for a good long walk. She loved her walks. For years now she has been living with this disease, and for years now she has not known who I am, who anyone in our family is. Instead of feeling sad over this fact it has been easier to look at it comically. When you can't cry about a situation what else do you do? You laugh.
What is making me confront the emotional impact now? Well a few days ago she fell and broker her wrist and hip and had to go through surgery. Instantly I thought, ok what is the likelihood that an 88 year old woman who is skin and bones will survive this? And then immediately after I thought, well this is my grandma we're talking about, and through all odds she keeps on breathing. The running joke is that she is going to out live us all. Low and behold, she made it through surgery. However, she is still in recovery and a lot can still go wrong post surgery.
I was her favourite granddaughter. I know grandma's are not supposed to say such a thing, but she did. She was different in that way. Didn't really like children, and since I was the oldest of my sisters and when I was young I was very mature (much more mature than I am now), so we were close. She always made me feel more like an adult when I would visit alone without my sister(s) -- looking back now it was probably more so the fact that she didn't care to cater to child-like ways of passing time with kids, but it was glorious for me as a young girl. I remember I must have been 10 or so years old and she lent me The Hobbit to read before bed, as though I had the mental capacity to read and understand it. Yes, she would let me be while she did her own thing, doing the crossword puzzle in her tv guide with her blue pens that had pen erasers on them (I thought that was too cool!). I would wander around her bedroom, carefully picking up her perfumes and smelling them. Looking at her porcelain figurines and sometimes playing with them quietly. Sometimes she would let me look through her photo albums with her. I was always fascinated by photo albums and old photographs and relished in hearing the stories behind them. I had/have an obsession for things that have passed, a nostalgic yearning for everything that has already come and gone.
One time she let me wear her robe and she played some music so I could dance. The song "I Will Survive" came on and she danced and sang it with me. It's really funny to think about that now, I don't think many of my family members could imagine her doing that. I know that a lot of them, especially like my mom and aunt who remember her as a mother growing up, see her very differently than I do..did. I have a much more idealized image of my grandma in my memory. They remember a woman who was void of empathy, who was maybe a little too blunt with little surface emotion. I can definitely understand that, it is not too far fetched, but my relationship with her was so different to me than that. In fact during those kind of moments where she was like that with me and my sisters, I thought she was just being hilarious.
One time she took my sister Elyse and I swimming in her community pool and Elyse starting, well, practically drowning. Instead of freaking out or getting into the pool to help my little sister who was just a child at the time, my grandma just stands there saying "what are you doing? stop that" ..She would get embarrassed so easily, truly a product of her time. Another instance is when she was babysitting all three of us at our house, there was a black out and my baby sis Lyndsay was so scared. We had lit candles all over the living room, but Lyndz left and went to ask my grandma if she could sleep with her. I could hear my grandma upstairs saying "oh, no, no you'll be fine". Something along those lines anyhow. Elyse and I were a little bit older and we looked at each other and just started laughing. What a strange woman. I guess you could say that was cold, but it was amusing to us!
We went on a family holiday to Myrtle Beach once and went to a pizza place called "California Pizza". I guess the food was taking a little long, so my grandma picked up her fork and knife, one in each hand, and started banging them on the table saying "we want food, we want food" and then "What, did they have to go all the way to California, dropped the pizza half way back, and go back to California, to get our food!?"... hands down one of the greatest memories of her. God, she made me laugh without even trying.
When us three would go over to her house in Sandy Cove, she would always have chocolate milk for us. Sometimes she would put on old home made videos which didn't even have any sound, just music to play with the footage. Just like with the photo albums, I went crazy over these videos. Getting to see my mom, aunts and uncle in their childhood days, seeing their dad, seeing my grandma young. They were so cool to watch and I remember wishing I was there in those videos. I thought it was so neat actually getting a visual of some of my families memories and seeing the places that were talked about, like the cottage, in the past tense.
Her movie choices were very limited for children, so the one option we had was "Beaches", which if you have ever watched Beaches, it is NOT a children's film. That was our first encounter with the movie ....and we fell in love. It was almost tradition to watch it every time we went over, which was a lot! To this day I am still not sick of it. On my one birthday... geeze I must've been turning like 12 or 13, I had a sleepover and all I wanted was to show my friends this movie... and they refused to shut up. Man, I was so pissed cause it meant so much to me, but it bore them to death. It's totally understandable to me now, what person at that age actually likes that kind of movie? Well the Ayliffe girls did.
My grandma really liked the mall too. Loved shopping. Whenever my older cousin would visit I would get so excited cause I knew that meant sleeping over at my grandmas and going to the mall and the movies. It was so cool to spend time with my teenage cousin who I looked up to and learned about teenage things. I would try to mimic her walk, buy the same clothes, lied about listening to the same music and watching the same movies cause I wasn't allowed or was too poorly informed about such things being the oldest and having no one to really show me the way in that world. All our bonding moments were thanks to my grandma's place.
For birthdays and holidays we'd have roast beef dinners at her place with yorkshire pudding and her infamous chocolate cake with butter icing (which we still have at such occasions). She had these little porcelain houses the held different spices in them in her kitchen. My sisters and I would debate over which house we wanted to live in correlated to the aesthetic of the actual house and the coolest/prettiest spice name.
There would be rare moments when my grandma would share a glimpse of her earlier life with us. My favourite is about her and my grandpa who died before I was born. She was working at a store and he would come in and ask her out and she would reject him. He'd wait for her until she finished her shift and then follow her on the bus ride home. Apparently he did this so much that finally just to get rid of him she gave him her number. Since then they talked on the phone every day and went to the dance on Saturday night (cause on Friday nights the dance was held for singles). After six weeks of knowing each other, they decided to elope. They left, got married, and then returned home to their separate houses and kept their marriage a secret until they had enough money to move out. .....I just thought that was so romantic.
I would just sit sometimes and envision this. My aunt has a photo of my grandma and grandpa when they were young..separate photos. My grandma looked like an old Hollywood starlet. So beautiful, i thought she looked like an actress in the vintage photo. And my grandpa was handsome too. I think my mom and aunt and others think that maybe they weren't so happy or in love or something... and I don't know why I just think he must've adored her to chase her the way he did... like she was still her sassy self but he thought it was humorous, maybe even loved her for her it. When I watch the home videos that's what I see anyway, that he just sort of understood that part about her, the blunt facade or wall that she had and how much she cared about what people thought about her and her family, as something amusing and adorable. Hey, what do I know about it really though. Well I do know that after her surgery a couple days ago she shouted out his name, the nurses asked my mom or aunt or both "Who is John? cause she shouted out his name". A woman who can't form a sentence and has no recollection of anyone or anything, and she shouts out her husbands name after surgery. I'm thinking he was there, and is waiting for her.
I never knew the guy, but its just the sense I get. I have always felt a sort of connection to him, as well as my other grandpa I never met either. My aunt gave me this gorgeous ring when I was ...13? Anyway her dad gave it to her, and I remember thinking... wow... this is so special. And after she left the room I just looked at it and really thought about him and sensed his vibe. It was very special. I lost it twice. One time I just had no idea where it went to. I was devastated. Then it showed up on Elyse's bedroom floor one day while the cleaning lady was vacuuming. .....then the final time, I was in Hilton Head and a little tipsy, ran into the ocean with it on. I remember it so vividly. I FELT it slip off my finger and I reached out for it...and it was gone. I cried like a little baby on the beach for a very long, long time. I am still so sad I lost it. The only thing I am pleased about is that, if I had to lose it, the ocean is the place I would choose. So many lost treasures in there, and maybe it washed up on shore and some little girl found it and thought it was special too.
I am wearing her, my grandma's, engagement ring now. It reminds me of him too though cause, well, he got it for her. When I look at it, or play with it around my finger, I try to imagine some moments of when she was younger and wearing it and maybe playing with it. I try to imagine what it would have been like having a husband get cancer and die on you, especially when you are not the emotional type. What it would be like to live alone after having a family of a husband and 4 kids. How she put up a front that to her kids appeared cold a lot of the times. I like to imagine that in reality she felt a great deal more than she let on in all aspects of her life. ...I also wonder a lot about her experiences in her youth, the trouble she got into, the things she did with her friends... what other boys she dated.. her philosophies on life, her view on the world. I wish I had asked more of these things but at the same time I know she'd brush them off with short light answers.
I don't know... I'm just not handling it all that well mentally, emotionally. It's hard and it's sad. I just really needed to document all of these little things, and I figured now is better than any time. If she dies soon, which don't get me wrong I think that would sort of be a blessing cause she would never wish to be alive in this state...never. It's why I haven't seen her in a while cause I know she would hate to be seen this way. Or maybe it's also a little bit for my own selfish state of mind. But if she dies from this surgery, I know I wouldn't be able to write this so easily.
I love you grandma, I really really do. I miss you and think of you all the time. ....it will be hard to say the final good bye.
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