Stronger than Yesterday

Last Labor Day I was home and Grandma had a stroke. She was in the hospital already, and changes in her medication probably caused it. There’s this “miracle” drug that can help reduce the effects of a stroke if it’s taken close enough to the time the stroke occurred. Grandma was on the outer limit of time, but they gave it to her. I visited the morning after, and I hear she was much better than when my parents first saw her. She knew what she wanted to say, and we could eventually guess the kinds of regular checking in questions she was trying to convey. But what kept popping out of her mouth was “Cribbage!” (I think this shows her competitive side. She and Dad were playing cribbage earlier that morning and I think she won.) Days later, I could talk to her on the phone and the only time she had trouble finding her words was when she was tired. At Thanksgiving we go around the table and take turns saying what we are thankful for. I wondered what Grandma would say, and even had the dark thought that we should skip her because it might be too hard to force her to express gratitude. But she had the purest response of us all. She was thankful for being present and for having recovered so drastically from the stroke just months before. Why had I been blinded to that response by her new limp and host of health concerns?

Last Friday I was home and Grandma fell on her face. Getting going in the morning is harder for her these days anyway, and maybe she fell asleep on her way out of bed. She got herself up, dressed the tear on her wrist and assessed her split lip, I’m sure with the calm collectedness of a nurse from Minnesota. She was going to the doctor that day anyway. She jokes that we should have seen the other guy.

This woman has always been one of the strongest women I’ve known. In a couple of short years, she lived through the death of her husband and three brothers. She is known to look for new experiences, like piercing her ears and joining a gym while in her 70’s. And until recently, she embraced longstanding activities like her bowling league and growing her city and country gardens. I’m sure on some level, perhaps not too deep down, she mourns her days of greater independence. What I see is my strong Grandma trapped in the body of a very frail woman. And it dawned on me this weekend how she is really getting stronger every day as she faces new diagnoses and further limitations.

She may soon have to move out of the house in which I’ve always known her to live. And I think she’ll make the decision on her own, because that’s the strong choice. She doesn’t garden now, and doesn’t bowl. She doesn’t cook much, and even is reading less. How I will miss those pot roast dinners with corn on the cob, cucumber salad, and homemade bread! But she knows everything that goes on in the lives of her loved ones, and she keeps us connected. She jokes just like she always has, and has the biggest vocabulary of anyone I’ve ever met. Very hard to believe Cribbage was her only word just over a year ago. She takes pride in pushing herself as far as she can go. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know exactly the best way to let her know how much I love her. I stand by her and hold her arm and walk her between the car and the house. I hope she feels the affection, like she’s a good girlfriend who I choose to walk with arm in arm, not just because I’m trying to keep the breeze from tipping her over. I want to be brave enough to be present with her by phone and in spirit when I’m not there in person. And maybe trying to be an independent strong woman myself is a good way to start.

42 Hours in South Dakota

On the way out of Denver, I got caught in a stupid traffic jam. Laughable to those of you from larger cities, but still, significant enough to make me cranky before my journey even really began. I sat through one stop light about four times, and tried to distract myself with the splinter in my thumb that’s been bugging me all week. Took out the tweezer from my makeup case in the back seat and started picking away half-heartedly. I thought of Grandma Johnson, who has no patience for this kind of indirect assault on splinters. One of my earliest memories of her is from when I was about five, standing on the front patio on an otherwise happy, sunny day, her with a needle in her hand. She grabbed my finger firmly with the needle poised and said: this will hurt a lot. Then it will be better. We have to do it. She said it with a sort of force and inevitability that gave me confidence, if confidence looks a little like resignation from time to time.

I’ve been back in Denver for 52 hours now, but the slow tight ache in my heart is holding on to the Hills where I grew up. Like removing the splinter, I needed to go home. And going there really does restore me in ways that no place else can. One might even say it helps me on the way to healing, even when it sometimes hurts.