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June 13, 2003 ~ What It Means to Leave Family
Friday.
The conversation has lingered with me all week. How happy my grandmother was to be talking to me, thanking me several times for calling, but stressing that not much was happening in her life, she never really had much news, so she really didn't deserve the call. She didn't see that it wasn't news that I was looking for. I wanted to hear her voice. I wanted to check in.
We talked about her writing and the story she was working on. About how one of her writing partners doesn't understand her style. We talked about her daily visits to the soup kitchens and the conversations she has with the bums there. "They're far more interesting than the old ladies in this housing complex." She complained about other senior citizens and how she just doesn't fit in with them. She talked about how her doctor (she finally got one) won't listen to her very well, and that concerns her. She talked about how frustrated she gets with people and their close-minded boxes.
I don't know why the conversation lingered with me so much this week. I call her every week or two; there is nothing particularly unusual about this week as compared to others. Perhaps this is a feeling that has been building for quite some time. Her voice sounds weaker, now, and she is frequently interrupted by harsh sounding coughs.
This woman has had a hard life. A life filled with struggle every inch of the way. But she never complains. I want nothing more for her than a chance to live in peace for her last years. A chance to worry no longer about the roof over her head. She enjoys the soup kitchens because the people there are "more alive" than anybody else, but I wish she didn't have to go there out of necessity. I used to visit her several times a week, back when I lived in Portland, stop by her little run-down apartment in the low-income complex and we would talk and talk for hours. I miss that.
I want for her standard medical care, rather than the "poor people's" doctor who won't listen to her. I want to take her into my own home, to give her a place to work on her writing, to give her healthy, whole meals, and company to talk to whenever she needs it. I want to go walking with her downtown, to talk to the bums with her. I want to take her on car trips so that she can look at all of the scenery, since she has always loved that so much, but doesn't have anyone to drive her. I want to spend afternoons painting or working on poetry together, joking and laughing in the shade of a tree on a summer afternoon, like we used to. I want to hear her laughter, still so hearty and free despite it all, fill a room and overflow it, as it always does in person.
But I live 3,000 miles away, with very limited resources. And she's not going to live forever. I keep waiting for someday (when I can live closer to her, when I can take care of her, when I can simply visit, for heaven's sake), but I'm starting to accept that someday may not come soon enough. It's a painful realization, that. To know that the ones you love are aging, but you can't see the wrinkles, the tired gait to their walk, the stiffness in their joints. I can't offer a supportive arm to help her step down from the curb and cross the street.
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