Grandmother Update
So, my Grandmother called yesterday and she sounded all chipper and clear on the answering machine. When I called her back she was as happy-go-lucky as you can imagine, telling me all about how she’d finally gotten a good night’s sleep and how she was going to upgrade her walker to a newer, spiffier model. After a awhile we had this exchange.
“Grandma, are you being nice to Aunt Judy?”
“Well not when I’m demented! Today is a good day and I’m not demented so I told her I was sorry. I guess I gave her a bad time on Monday but today I’m fine.That’s what it means, dementia. It’s quite complicated. I mean, when you are demented you don’t really know what you are saying….At least that’s what they tell me. (no pause) So anyway, the reason I was calling is that I’m going to adopt these five golden retrievers and I was wondering if you wanted me to bring you one?”
oh my god, i love this woman!
and tell her i’ll take a golden retriever, too.
Your grandma sounds pretty precious to me in her occasional dementia. Five golden retrievers? Is that like four calling birds?
[…] Indeed I do know, though I’ve had to listen between the lines to find them. Grandma, always the spunky edge dweller, never towed the protestant line. Instead she knit together a spirituality that combined a little of big of Blackfoot folklore; a strong pull towards the mountains; and some affection for Jesus on the side. This angel — a small smear of blue-green ink on the soft wrinkled skin of her shoulder–this is her guide now, helping her through the drawn out years of her ‘final days’, and into the unknown and unknowable hereafter. […]