Let me tell you a story about my grandmother....

 

It was a cold dreary day in December.  The rain was not quite frozen, but the cold droplets stung my cheeks and soaked my mittens so that my fingers were numb and my hair was damp.  The year was 1972, and my Brownie Troop was headed to a local nursing home to sing some songs and to give out some Christmas candy to cheer up the residents.  Our troop leader had a bag of candy canes wrapped with fancy ribbon that we had put together to give to the residents at the home and hopefully give them a little Christmas cheer.  As we walked in the door, it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the very dim lighting inside the foyer.  One of the girls said loudly, “What’s that smell?”  As her voice echoed through the long, dark entry hall. The troop leader sharply turned around and in a loud whisper said “Quiet! We need to be respectful of the residents here, many of them may be resting!”

On the left, there was a miserable-looking woman sitting behind a plate glass window with a small opening at the bottom.  Our troop leader informed the woman of the purpose of our visit and she pointed us to a cloak closet where we could hang our coats.  We then made our way down the long corridor and went through large doors that opened up to the common rooms of the residence, where most of the seniors seemed to be congregating.  In one corner, there was a TV, where several people were watching a game show, but the room was fairly quiet as we bustled in with our bags of holiday goodies, making a bit of a racket as we were all talking amongst ourselves.  Our troop leader motioned for us to join her in one corner of the room, and she began dividing up the holiday candy for each of us to give out.

We were told to split up into pairs, and quietly approach the seniors and wish them a Merry Christmas and give them the candy.  Sounds easy enough, but turns out, my partner didn’t really want to help and she faked feeling sick because she didn’t want to be there, so I ended up doing all of the work myself, while she hung back pretending to not feel well, while constantly complaining “I don’t want to be here, this place smells and it's making me sick”  I was annoyed because I would have rather been home too, but since I was already there, I figured I would make the best of the situation since it would be over soon enough.  Most of the residents were friendly and appreciative of the candy as we handed it out.  As I made my way down the dimly lit hallways with flickering fluorescent lights, there was a sense of melancholy throughout the halls. It a dreary place to be, with the residents giving us sad smiles and saying thank you while holding onto our hands just a little too long. 

I came to a quiet sitting room with one lone woman, who was sitting on a sofa.  I tentatively approached her and said “Merry Christmas!” then thrust my hand out with a big ribbon-wrapped candy cane.  She looked at me for a couple of seconds, then scowled and said “Get that away from me!  I’m diabetic!” while swinging out her hand and knocking the candy out of my hand, making it fly across the room.  I stood there frozen, this was not the reaction I had been expecting.  I stood there for a few seconds, staring, blinking away my tears. My partner, who hung back, started giggling, and one of the nurses from the nearby station, rushed up and scolded the woman who in turn, growled: “I just want to be left alone!”  The nurse apologized to me for the behavior of the woman and tried to tell me “she’s like that with everyone”, but I couldn’t help but take it personally. I was upset because I was trying to do a nice thing, and I got yelled at.  At the time I was too young to really understand this woman’s predicament, I just wanted to get as far away from that place as soon as possible after that.  

Reluctantly, I gathered with the rest of the Brownies to sing a few Christmas carols in the main room, to entertain the residents, but I wasn’t feeling too cheery, and the sad-looking tree in the corner and the tinsel taped around the windows of the room didn’t do much to cheer up the place.  As much as the staff tried to make the room look festive, somehow, it looked sadder.  After our performance, the Troop leader gathered us in a corner of the room and we then formed a line, two-by-two, and followed her out of the entryway where we had originally come in.  The ordeal was over and I was finally going home, never to return.  Sadly, it was not long after this ordeal, that my grandmother became sick. 

Most of my memories of my grandmother, before she got sick, are of the little things she did, such as feeding us those individually wrapped Neapolitan ice cream squares which were neatly wrapped in the white paper.  She would always peel off the paper and plop one for each of us in a bowl for me and my brother and sister to devour.  I had a habit of eating one flavor of ice cream at a time, saving the chocolate part for last, because it was my favorite.  I remember that her kitchen was all bubblegum pink.  There were pink tile walls and pink laminate countertops.  On one of the counters, sat a large ceramic bank in the shape of Buddha, who was squatting in the corner and had a large protruding belly.   She would give us each a nickel and say “when you put a coin in his slot, you have to rub his belly and make a wish, and it will come true”, I never doubted her as I eagerly put my nickel in.  In my grandmother’s spare bedroom, she had some shelves on the wall, filled with figurines collected from over the years.  I had always admired the collection and loved looking at them.  One afternoon, she pulled me in and told me that I could pick my favorite one from the shelf.  I ended up choosing one of a smiling cat that had a red ribbon tied around his neck.  I still have that cat, although his red ribbon is long gone, but I always think of that magical day when she let me choose it.

My grandparents always loved to entertain, and I remember all the parties with family and friends, at their home.  All my cousins and second cousins and aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles were in attendance.  There was always music and laughter in that house and  I loved every minute of it!  I remember running down the basement and running around, playing games  and listening to music, then running upstairs and bugging my older cousins who were watching a movie in the spare room. My great aunt would always proclaim “You’re getting taller every time I see you!” Needless to say, she would say this to me until I was graduating college and had long stopped growing.

In true Italian fashion, my grandparents’ living room furniture was covered in plastic as well as plastic carpet runners.  I had always hated it, because my legs would stick to the plastic seat covers and it was painful when you had to slowly peel your skin off the plastic because it somehow would become fused to it.  My grandparents home was filled with collectibles from their travels over the years.  She had a china cabinet filled with collectible plates and figurines.  In the basement they had pennants from all the different places they traveled, like Los Angeles, Niagara Falls, etc.  Everywhere you looked, there was something of interest to look at.  My mom used to think it was too much stuff, but I loved it.  Nowadays, my grandmother’s collections would be considered an eBayer’s paradise.

When my family would come for Sunday dinner, the kids were always banished to the basement to play in the rumpus room, and my grandmother always made sure that we had plenty of toys and coloring books to play with while we were there.  As you entered my grandparents’ house, you could smell the garlic and Italian spices simmering, smells that, sadly, I have never been able to replicate in my own cooking.  Dinner was always interesting, with loud animated conversations and laughter.  It was at one of these dinners that we realized that something was not quite right with my grandmother.  She had somehow lost her wedding ring and had become very agitated, almost frantic.  As we all went searching around the house looking for the ring, my father finally asked her if she put it in her pocket.  When she reached in, she pulled out the ring with a puzzled look on her face.

My grandmother was then taken to the doctor’s office shortly after that incident.  We wanted some answers as to what could be wrong.  My family became frustrated, because we couldn’t get any answers from the doctors and all her tests came back as inconclusive.  This lack of any conclusion only led to confusion for most of the family, and some members of my grandmother’s family began blaming my grandfather for causing her illness, and they ended up not speaking to my grandfather for many years. They blamed him because they were frustrated because we had no answers and they needed someone to blame.  It wasn’t until a year or two later that it was determined that she had Alzheimer’s.  Sadly, by the time most of my grandmother’s family knew about her condition, the damage was already done, and the relationships were fractured, never to be the same again.  Although Alzheimer’s had been around for a long time, not many doctors were even aware of it in the early 1970s.

It was very frustrating for my family to get answers, as my grandmother’s condition continually deteriorated.  There was a concern of leaving her home alone while my grandfather went to work, so a family meeting was called, and It was determined that my mom would stay at the house to keep an eye on her during the day while everyone else was at work or school.  This threw a big wrench in our family routine, instead of walking home from school with friends, my mom, along with my grandmother, would come pick us up and drive us back to our grandparents’ house. Once there, we would do our homework in the basement, while my mom made dinner. My grandfather and father would arrive at the house sometime after 6pm and we would all have dinner together, and then we would go home afterwards and go to bed.  At 5am, it would start all over again.  It was strange, I used to love coming to my grandparents’ house, but now I was beginning to dread it. I didn’t want to be there, away from my friends and away from my familiar surroundings.  I’m sure that I didn’t help to make it easier for my family either, but I was very young, and didn’t really understand what was happening at the time.  Over the weeks, or perhaps months (time moves so slowly when you’re a kid), my grandmother had become a totally different person. Her once smiling face, now exhibited no signs of emotion, her eyes showed no recognition, and she barely spoke.  When she did speak, it was sometimes a phrase in Italian or she would just repeat one word over and over, while rocking back and forth in her chair. 

One afternoon, I and my siblings were in the living room with my grandmother, and my mom was in the kitchen making dinner.  All of a sudden my grandmother looked up and stared at my brother Chuck, with some sort of recognition in her expression, and said: “Bobby, come over here”.  Not really understanding the magnitude of the situation, we all laughed at her, thinking it was funny that she couldn’t remember my brother’s name.  My grandmother just sat there with a look of confusion, not really understanding why we were laughing.  My mom immediately came from the kitchen and scolded us for laughing, saying “it’s not funny!” She then snapped at us, “Don’t you have homework to do?”  We were still giggling about it as we headed down the basement to do our homework.  My school work began to suffer though, and I was always lost in thought, unable to pay attention in class, and eventually, unable to concentrate on my homework as I sat in my grandparents’ basement.  In my mind, I kept thinking that she would eventually get better, that this was not how things were going to be from now on, but that it was temporary.  My family never really spoke to us about what was really going on, because we were so young, but this lack of communication just added to my confusion about the situation.  I kept it all to myself, never sharing how I was feeling to friends, family or anyone else. 

My mom along with grandmother in the car, picked us up from school, as usual, one day.  As we were heading back to the house, we were hit from behind, just as the car was stopped at the train tracks.  The barrier was coming down and the lights were flashing, but for some reason, the driver behind us was not aware and slammed into the rear of our car.  The car lurched forward, and we all started screaming, thinking that we would be pushed onto the tracks and be hit by the train, (we weren’t).  My mom checked with each of us to make sure no one was hurt.  Turns out, the driver was a teenager who was driving his dad’s car, and he didn’t have insurance.  My mom was furious over this incident, but at least no one was hurt.  When I recounted the story of the accident to others, the car was a mere inch away from the roaring train. Oddly enough, there was no mention of my grandmother being sick when I recounted this story to friends.  It was almost as if I was ashamed or embarrassed by our situation. 

Every summer, my family would rent a cabin in the Pocono Mountain area, at a place called Rocky Lane Farms.  It was a group of cabins in the woods that my parents, and their friends and their kids, would rent the same week every summer.  There was a lake for fishing, a pool, a rec room with ping-pong, shuffleboard, board games, and a piano.  There was also a swing set and sandbox to keep us kids busy too.  In the summer before my grandmother moved into the nursing home, my grandfather decided that he would bring my grandmother to Rocky Lane Farms, and they would stay in a nearby cabin.  I recall being somewhat annoyed by this because this was our vacation to get away from what had become our new routine.  I felt I needed a break from always having my grandmother around.  Years later, when we had our old home movies recorded to video, there was footage of my grandmother.  She was making her way down a hill, and even then, you could see that she looked a little disheveled and confused, and had that vacant stare that we all came to know so well. She seemed to walk with purpose, but with no real destination.  When watching the home movies, I had totally forgotten that she came with us that trip.  I suppose I had forgotten that she was there because I wanted to forget it.  We had given up so much time and energy for her care and I wanted a break, I wanted to have fun, and felt that we couldn't do that if she was there.  I know it sounds selfish now, but at the time, I wanted to forget our family’s hardships, even if it was just for a week.

One early evening, while my mom was busy making dinner as usual and I and my brother and sister were in the basement, the phone rang.  It was one of the neighbors, apparently, they spotted my grandmother walking down the street with no shoes on and wearing only a slip.  My mom immediately told us to stay inside the house while she ran out to get our grandmother.  Thankfully, she hadn’t gone too far, and my mom, with the help of the neighbor who called, managed to coax her back to the house with only little resistance.  That evening, when my father and grandfather returned from work, my mom practically had a nervous breakdown, when she recanted the day’s events.  My parents and my grandfather decided to have a family meeting after dinner, while we kids were banished to the basement.  I remember coming upstairs, several times, wanting to go home, only to be told to go back to the basement.  From the look on everyone’s face, I knew that they were discussing some serious issues, and they didn’t want us kids to hear about it.  It was not long after that incident, that our family had come to the decision that our grandmother needed to be admitted to a nursing home where she could get care 24/7.

I’m not a big fan of nursing homes, especially after my first encounter with one, and they have always made me feel uneasy.  When you walk through the doorway you get hit with that acrid smell of urine and cleanser.  Each time I entered, I would hold my breath for as long as I could, just so I wouldn’t breathe in the smell.  For the first few years that my grandmother was living in the facility, our family would come out every Sunday afternoon and stay there for several hours.  We would take her outside to a patio area and she would just sit in a chair, with her eyes looking off, while she muttered “yes, yes, yes” while rocking back and forth in her chair. My dad would try to talk to her, to see if he could get any kind of response from her, but she would just continue with her rocking, never making eye contact with anyone.  During these visits, I would tend to get bored and would take to wandering the hallways.  I had a habit of looking in the rooms, as I strolled by, curious about its inhabitants.  Most of the time the people inside were sleeping, so they would barely notice me, but one afternoon, as I was walking by a room at the end of the hall, I looked in and saw a tiny frail woman lying in bed.  Her skin was translucent and you could see the blue veins under the skin.  She had spotted me and smiled and motioned for me to come in with her long thin, blue-veined arm.  I stared at her for a moment, then as I was about to take a step forward, got scared, and ran down the hall.  I’m sure she was a nice lady, but for some reason, I was terrified of going into that room.  A couple of weeks later, her room was vacant, and I felt bad for not going in.   

The holidays added some interest for us kids, at the nursing home.  The Salvation Army would come to visit, wearing their uniforms and singing Christmas carols for the residents and the families.  Some of the residents sat in confusion, having no idea what was happening, while others sang along and clapped with the music.  It was at once a joyous and sad spectacle to behold.  It was also around that time that the nursing staff began to tie my grandmother to her chair.  They referred to her as an escape artist, because she had a habit of wandering.  When she was tied to the chair, she was very restless and kept wriggling in her chair, trying to break free.  My father tried to calm her down with soothing words, but she would not even look at him, and just continued to try to escape, as if somehow, she could break free from the chair.  We knew it was for her own safety, but it also seemed a little barbaric and cruel, but what else could they do?   

As we got older, the Sunday visits became less frequent for me and my siblings and even my mom, as we would be involved in sports or Girl Scout activities.  My father would still go every Sunday afternoon, and wouldn’t come home until dinner time every Sunday. It was only around Christmas and Easter Sunday, that we would join my father in the nursing home visits.  On one of these visits, a man, who happened to be a resident, had stopped to talk to my dad as if he knew him.  They would talk for quite a while, and the guy really seemed happy to see my dad.  Afterward, he would shake my dad’s hand and said it was really good to see him, and then he would leave.  I asked my dad who he was, and he said that he was one of the residents who had mistaken him taken him for someone else on one of his Sunday visits, and my dad just kept playing along with him each time he saw him.  Now it seems that he would stop by every Sunday to chat with my dad, perhaps mistakenly thinking he was there to visit him? My dad didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth.

My grandmother ended up living in that nursing home for almost 7 years until she passed away in 1979 when I was around 14.  At the funeral, I had approached her casket and touched her hand, which was very stiff and cold. She looked very frail and thin, and nothing like the vibrant robust woman I remembered from when I was little.  I don’t remember much of the service, but I do remember the luncheon afterward, where many family members shared funny stories of my grandmother.  Many times during the luncheon, my relatives would say “It’s too bad that you were too young to remember how she was before she got sick”.  As they cleaned out her room in the nursing home, I remember there was an old picture frame from one of our many visits to the Pocono Mountains, it was basically a slice of wood stamped Pocono Mountains on the top and there were three drilled out holes where you could put small photos in it.  In each hole, there was a photo of me, my brother and sister, from whatever school photo we had the year we gave it to her.  It wasn't until years later, my mom was going to get rid of the frame with the photos, that I asked her if I could have it.  It was just a reminder of my grandmother, and it may not be one of the best memories, but it's one of the few that I have.  I look through these old photos of her and mourn for the person that I barely got to know.