Ithaca: A Year Later

Last June, I came to Ithaca and spent a week with my 98-year-old grandmother.  She was using a walker, but was quite spry.  We'd have breakfast in the morning and then she'd disappear to get dressed. We'd then spend time sitting on the porch, she reading and me at the computer.  We'd have lunch, spend and hour or two telling each other stories of the past, then she'd usually take a nap.  She'd normally be in bed reading, but would hop up around 4:30-5:00 for a cocktail or two.  Cheese and crackers and some laughs were had before we started thinking about dinner.  We'd have dinner, then coffee and dessert and finish the night with a movie or maybe even a baseball game.  Around 10:30-11:00 she'd retired and we'd repeat the process the next day.

One year later and I'm back filling in for my father.  The routine has changed and the moments have slowed drastically. It seems almost comical to mention time when discussing someone who is now 99.  She awakes earlier in the morning, demanding coffee.   She doesn't seem to savor it like before.  Asking constantly if her when her aid is coming.  Three of the seven days, she's helped by someone who gets paid to do it.  She revels in the attention, but picks apart every nuance that irks her about each one.  She does the same for my father and I, so they should feel accepted.  It's now 11:30 and she's getting dressed. Multiple calls to help are met.  She's dressed, but now exhausted. She lays down for what she says is a minute, but it turns into hours.  She awakes sometime between 1:00 and 2:00 and asks for lunch.  She wants what she wants and she wants when she wants it.  A silly sentence, but something she actually recites.  A half a sandwich, a small bowl of soup or the occasional omelet. I make hers and mine.  She asks me multiple questions. Some I answered during breakfast or the night before.  Some minutes ago.  We eat and talk.  She asks me my plans for the day.  She knows I have none.  She retires to her room.  It's too cold out she says. She's always cold. Her frail body doesn't feel heat.  On some days, she beckons; a call for ice cream. She steps out of her bedroom, devours it. For anyone else, it's not healthy, but she needs the calories.

The day is beginning to wind down. The Autumnal Equinox signalling shorter days. I'll resist use if any corny metaphor here. She calls at 5pm, like it's instilled in her, we joke it's distilled in her. She wants a drink.  A scotch and seltzer on the rocks.  It better be made right.  She will complain loudly.  She sits and watches the news, speaking to them and wondering who they are.  They are talking of places like Ithaca and Syracuse. 96 years she lived in Philadelphia.  Where is the report on Central High and the Liberty Bell. I joke that she remembers it before it was cracked.  She laughs and nods in approval as she sips her drink.  We've mastered some trickery to alleviate a difficult dinner.  We make a weak drink, stir it vigorously, then float a little more on the top.  The first sip proves to her she isn't being cheated.  Some nights she wants another.  She demands crackers. She eats four or five, despite being told, like a child, it will ruin her appetite.  Some night she tells me to go to hell, soon forgetting and telling me how great it is I'm here.

I cook dinner and all the while she doesn't understand where I go and why I can't sit.  Why I can't socialize and let the help do the cooking.  There never has been any help, it's just a pace she's grown accustomed to that seems to be moving to fast to comprehend anymore. The sun starts to set as I stir and baste.  She calls, over and over. Every time, asking me to come sit.  I wish I could without burning dinner.  I explain. I walk away and she calls again.  The same question. Frustration starts to mount, but I walk away.  I finish cooking. Another ten or fifteen minutes, accompanied by no less than ten or fifteen calls for company.  I tell her to come to the table.  Dinner is ready.  She still sits, waiting to be called.  I call again.  She arrives and points out her dinner is getting cold.  "Why didn't you call me before you brought it out."  My mistake, of course.

I try to relax.  Age, fatigue and memory is taking it's toll. I take a bite and I glance over.  A fork moving food around. Not sure if she wants it.  She's sleepy and wants to go to bed.  I explain she has to eat.  She tells me she did nothing but eat all day.  In her mind it's true, the reading, the phone calls, the naps, all just intermissions between her meals.  She tells me how much she looks forward to watching a movie, followed shortly after by her desire to retire.  I quickly eat my food.  I don't want her to start to leave and my food to go cold.  At home, I'd do half this work. Swordfish, with orzo and fresh steamed broccoli.  She raves about how good it is after only one bite. If she takes another, I'll be happy.  I make coffee and grab the dishes.  She calls to me, thinking I've abandoned her.  I poke my head out from the kitchen, she smiles and yells to come in.  I explain what I'm doing.  We repeat the process, like some warped game of geriatric peek-a-boo.  She sings verses of songs to keep her company. The same ones over and over.

Coffee comes, accompanied by pills and dessert.  She marvels at the flavor of the coffee.  She takes her pills and lets me know when she is done.  She is ready for bed.  The last three hours have felt like ten for me.  I'm 42, drained and needing the couch.  My father is 77, soon to be 78.  How does he do it?  We walk to the bedroom.  I'm warned not to go to far.  It's seconds before I'm called.  We go through our evening routine. She is finally in bed.  She makes sure I know she's appreciative.  She promises we'll enjoy coffee in a few hours.  She just needs some sleep.  Some nights we express our love, some nights it's as pedestrian as her asking me to leave her and turn off the lights.  My family, while loving, has never felt that need to say it all the time.  We know it.

She drifts off quickly.  I finish in the kitchen and head to the couch.  I turn on the TV.  My eyes grow heavy. It's not that taxing a day, but it's the responsibility.  It's the worry.  Stress is tiring.  I'm reminded of my mother and her illness.  How tired she was at the end of the day and how exhausted I was every second of the day.  It's not the doing, it's the thought of doing.  It's sticking to a familiar routine that absolutely terrorizes me.  I'm not someone used to a schedule.  Even when I was, I'd purposely alter it, in some Frostian attempt to change  my altogether monotonous life.  I start to fade, thinking about the funny things she's said.  Thinking about how at some point during each day she reminds anyone who will listen that life is a pretty good thing.  I'm young and don't share this sentiment often.  I don't have kids and grand kids calling me.  I don't have great grand kids sharing lunching with me. I don't have people who I've know for seventy years calling me to say hello.

I make my way upstairs and fall into bed.  I lay on my side and think back to my childhood.  I think about visiting her in Philadelphia.  Arriving on a Friday night to a bowl full of spaghetti and meatballs and a huge salad.  Going to sleep in her bedroom.  I'd awake in the morning. Her tapping my shoulder to get up. She'd tell me to put on my robe and slippers, warning of the cold kitchen floor.  I'd sit as she made coffee.  I'd have my juice and cereal.  She'd make hers and we'd talk before the others joined.  She'd tell me about her time in Cape May with her friend Nat.  Thirty-five years and nothing has really changed.  The only difference is the person making breakfast.  Life is good.