And just like that, she was gone. I opened my email this late afternoon to find a message from my stepfather sent mid-morning. My grandmother, his mother, had passed away suddenly and peacefully. Actually, the email read, “relatively quickly and without pain.” When you read an email like that, the words kind of blur.
My grandmother was not my biological relative, but she might as well have been. I met her in 1983, when I was eight. When you know someone that long, they are as good as blood, just like my friends I’ve known for 20 or 30 years. My grandmother was a stern Catholic woman of few words. She didn’t have an easy life. Born in 1928, she married late, when she was 26, to a man nearly 20 years her senior. She bore three sons in quick succession, and I banished from my mind what transpired that this devout Catholic woman didn’t bear any more children.
A little past a decade of marriage, her husband suffered a stroke. My stepfather remembers food sliding down the side of his father’s mouth as his mother fed him. At age sixteen, my stepfather lost his father, a steady provider who earned a gold watch for working 30 years as a salesman. His father’s stroke scarred him for life. He not only remembered it, he at times invoked it. Never a year passed in my childhood when he did not. It was part of his being.
A relatively young widow, my grandmother went to work in a factory to supplement her and her children’s social security benefits. My stepfather, who espoused financial independence and responsibility, received his father’s social security benefits 16 to 18 years of age. At a time when so many people are abusing the social safety net (mainly through disability claims), it’s sobering to remember what social security benefits used to stand for.
On the factory floor, my grandmother almost lost an eye when a projectile nearly hit her. After that she went to work in a nursing home. She had cared for her husband, now she would spend nearly 30 more years caring for others. When she finally went to a nursing home herself, she knew some of the people that cared for her.
My grandmother did not express very much emotion. My mother felt alienated. At one time, she said she felt closer to people she knew for a lot less time but with whom she could engage in deep conversation. In truth, my grandmother probably didn’t approve of her son living with my mother, a divorced woman with a child. Nevertheless, my grandmother opened up her home to us when we were in town. We visited every month or two. She would cook dinner for us. I don’t remember anything she said. I remember her quivering lips, which I never questioned. I thought it was a nervous tick. I remember her kitchen counters stacked back to front, top to bottom with household things. I don’t even remember what they were, but I vividly remember that there was no room on the countertops. Today we would call it hoarding, but while I didn’t like it, I never thought about mental health. Somehow being in her house made me more like her- unquestioning.
Growing up in apartments, I loved going to my grandmother’s house in the woods. Or at least it used to be the woods. Now it’s suburbia. I thought her house was big. Later I realized that her entire first floor, kitchen included, could fit into a large living room of a new house. I never saw the upstairs. Somehow, I felt it was off limits. One time I went half-way up the stairs, afraid I was betraying a trust, and went back down.
Like my grandmother, I accepted and didn’t question in her house.
My grandmother lived with her youngest son, Bob. Unlike my step-father, who is a prolific communicator, his youngest brother, like their mother, is a man of few words. For years everyone except his mother called him Bob, until one day during a family gathering in our apartment, in one of the few times he ever spoke up, he said, “My name is not Bob, it’s Rob.” We were shocked, or at least I was, but after that, we all called him Rob.
We always visited for Christmas, which was very cold in Pennsylvania. One winter, my uncle’s dog, Melissa, was tied outside on the porch for some reason. I took it in, but didn’t take it in, until I was probably complaining about something and my grandmother said, “Do you hear that dog whining? She’s cold.” I don’t remember anything more than that. She put me in my place, which was probably the point.
Years later, when I visited my grandmother in a nursing home, I made a comment about how much I marveled yet feared giving birth. (I was not pregnant at the time.) She shared one sentence with me: “Your body prepares you for it.” She didn’t say anything more than that, and that, for her, was sharing a lot. I can’t count the number of times when my mother or I, being the passionate women that we are, would say something and my grandmother would respond in silent attention. I took great comfort in what she said that day, and when I did give birth several years later, my body did adjust to make that happen. My grandmother was right. I remembered her words. Of all the words exchanged between us over the years, these bits are the few sentences I remember.
My grandmother’s room in the nursing home was slightly messy, just like her small rural house. She moved to a nursing home after she suffered a stroke following a gallbladder surgery. The stupid doctor failed to mention she should have someone with her during recovery. My uncle Rob found her on the floor of the bathroom.
My grandmother became a client in the type of residence she once served. She knew some of the caretakers that now bathed her. The residence was very nice, much classier than her house. You could tell the other residents came from money. My stepfather wanted the best.
When I flew into town, I would show up unannounced. “Julie,” she would say with a smile and a hint of surprise. The last time I was there, about three years ago, I peeled off layers of clothing and still sweated in my thermal long sleeved shirt because the fall season was much warmer than I remembered. The locals would have reached into their closets for something more appropriate, but I came dressed for winter. A nurse’s aide who walked by the open door, after looking at me and my sweaty, scraggly attire, told my grandmother to let him know if she needed anything. I wouldn’t have blamed him if he thought I was some destitute relative asking for money.
Another time, an aide taking my grandmother’s vitals commented that we look alike. After 25 years, of course we did. My grandmother introduced me as her granddaughter. She had a biological granddaughter. I felt honored that she would call me the same.
On our last visit, my grandmother watched TV the entire time. I never told her about Polina. I didn’t want her to tell my mother or stepfather or bear the burden of not telling them. I didn’t want to open that can of worms. Instead, I kicked that can down the road. So we sat there together, watching a stupid daytime talk show. I thought how fitting it was that for a woman of few words, that’s what we would be doing. Did I want more from the relationship? Of course I did. But that’s not who she was.
Years passed and I couldn’t afford to fly to the east coast again. In my gut, I worried about her. She had started using a walker, then entered more intensive care when she began using a wheelchair. With a sinking feeling, I searched her name, terrified of finding an obituary, relieved that I didn’t.
And then today, an email. Ten years after emailing my stepfather that I didn’t want to be contacted, he sent me an email that my grandmother had passed away. I appreciate that he sent it, because I didn’t know if he would notify me.
Although she never met Polina, my guess is that now she knows. My theory is that after we die, we learn about everything in life, things we knew and didn’t know during our time on earth.
And so, grandmother, now you know everything. In the spirit of Johnny Cash, when the time comes, I’ll see you on the other side.