Grandmother

            by Ruth Margaret Pardee

 

I knew there was never a time she wasn’t thinking of me. Although my grandmother and I saw each other every few months, phone calls would come almost daily:

“Ruth I was listening to NPR and there was a piece on Fresh Air that made me think of you….

“I passed a store today I know you would love, we’ll have to go when you come to visit, soon, right Dear?”

The comfort of being ever-present in her thoughts wrapped around me like a blanket, covering my toes, keeping me in a tender cocoon. She would come for Thanksgiving every year with her partner Judy, my other grandmother, and we would sit at a yellow-orange leafed park eating turkey sandwiches and getting whiplash from the “gentle autumn breeze”. My brother and I would spend Easters dying our hands purple while attempting to make colorful eggs at her home in Portland, Oregon. By her unbounded care and attention, we knew how excited my grandmother was to have us experience these joyful moments of our childhood in her care.

            When my brother was one year old, my parents took him to visit her house in Hood River, Oregon. He paraded triumphantly through the house saying “banana, banana, banana” over and over, proud of his first word. When he was asked to then call my grandmother “nana”, he was confused. The conglomeration of the two words that followed left my grandmother evermore known as “Mnana”.

            My grandmothers decided to show my brother and me the world. In fourth grade they drove us over the border, masquerading us as their young children, to Canada where they had bought a second home. She taught me to toss rocks forcefully so they’d skip off the glittering water of the Georgia strait, and helped me buy what I thought were meaningful gifts for my parents (I © Canada key chains and tins of maple candy). The next year we watched Mnana fist-fight a pickpocketer attempting to steal her handbag in Amsterdam. When we became lost in London, Mnana stopped every passerby, never ashamed to ask where the nearest tube was. After days full of the Rijksmuseum, Big Ben, or canal boat rides, my brother and I would ask, “Can we stay inside today to rest?” But each day Mnana roused us, “You’re only in Amsterdam for a week, you can relax at home.”

Next came our “lazy vacation” in Zihuatanejo, Mexico. We passed sunny days on the beach of La Ropa, while Mnana encouraged us to ride a rickety boat through the muddy rivers to glimpse an alligator only a foot away. Our last trip was to Paris, where Mnana mastered the metro and ordered crêpes of buerre et sucré for us on our way back to the apartment.

One of her loves was card games; she loved the competition and got a gleam in her eye when she saw an opportunity to bid six no trump in bridge. On vacation we indulged every night, playing an old family game called Gripe (the name succinctly explains the visceral reaction one has while playing it). In every country we would find a table, deal the dirty tired cards, Mnana drinking a glass of merlot so she wouldn’t get too upset if she lost. Each morning she would sit on the edge of my fold-out bed, singing softly to wake me for the busy day ahead.

 

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            I sat at my computer freshman year. I was obsessing over the twinkles and bleeps from my screen every few seconds signifying important IMs were traveling through cyberspace towards me. The telephone chirped; I easily ignored it as my mother wiped her hands on her apron and answered,

“Hello?”

I continued chatting – new gossip was arising between two close friends.

“Oh dear…”

My mother eased herself onto the couch. Only by the tone of her voice did I look up. Immediately I registered her expression, her face pale.

My computer was barking at me now. Bleep Bleep BLEEEEPP, but I did not hear it as I moved towards my mother. Sitting poised on the arm of her chair, I was helpless but to watch her stoic expression crumple and a tear slide from beneath her eyelid.

Once she got off the phone, she explained to my brother and me that Mnana had had a spell of “swirls” in her vision and Judy was driving her from Canada to the emergency room in Portland. It was a classic sign of pressure on the brain, often due to a tumor. Surely we had not understood. Brain cancer? Brain cancer was the butt of silly jokes, the hyperbole used to show the lack of severity of other peoples’ situations. Suddenly it was not so funny.

            As Mnana was run through various machines, her fluids taken and analyzed, the hospital prepared for the biopsy. They would be cutting open her skull to see what was inside. New words were being added to my vocabulary: oncologist, glioblastoma, malignant, metastasize. I tried to force them out, scared of what the next would bring.

I had not truly talked to Mnana since the news had come. When she called on the phone, we spoke briefly, “Hello Sweetie, is your mother home?”
           “Yeah, let me get her,” I murmured flatly.

I walked with the receiver pressed to my chest (could she hear my thumping heart?) rather than speaking animatedly to her as I normally would. A cold river ran through my heart at the thought of saying anything to her, because nothing I could say would be just anything, it would have to be everything. I was ashamed of myself, but shame does not triumph over fear.

            When it was time (too quickly) for the biopsy, my dad flew to Portland, Mnana’s four children finally surrounding her. I was comforted knowing they were there together, convincing myself there was no room for a granddaughter anyway, they needed their space. It was okay to cower under my covers, it was only right. I put the biopsy out of my mind. Each time the thoughts rushed back in during that long school day I desperately threw all my weight against the mischievous demons, trying to keep them contained to their corner.

            And then the news came back. “The biopsy was successful, no complications,” the doctors told us. They continued that Mnana had a glioblastoma multiforme, the most aggressive type of primary brain cancer, the worst results possible. And yet the doctor had said the biopsy was successful? Successful meant, “Oh we’re sorry, we seem to have made a mistake. Your grandmother doesn’t have cancer, it was just a shadow on the CAT scan. Our mistake.” Successful is not cancer.

            Safe thoughts were allowed in my brain: school, homework, softball practice, sleep. I wouldn’t allow a switch to the unsafe thoughts, the thoughts of cancer growing and taking over, turning weak the one mind I knew would always stay strong. There was a map in my head, and I could only stay in Berkeley, never venturing too far north. I pictured a bright TV weather map, with clear skies above the Bay Area, and the further North you got, the thicker the swirls of sleet and thunder. The weatherman ferociously spun his hands in a pinwheel over Portland, indicating only under dire circumstances could one venture to the eye of the storm.

            The dire circumstances came about a month after the diagnosis when Mnana began refusing food and water, and it was time to fly up for the last visit. I can picture my dad approaching me after softball practice but I can’t reiterate one word he said. All emotion had been vacuumed from me by the news and I was left empty of thought or feeling. I put my head to his chest, aware that a wave of sadness was expected to cross my face, that I couldn’t let my slacken loss of sensation show. Our plane carried us from the numbness of Berkeley into the heart of the pain where there was no choice but to face the fearsome thoughts.

 

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            My aunt’s house looked the same as when I had come to play with her new puppies, the same as when I was there to jump on the trampoline. Up the stairs, through the kitchen, and stop. The bedroom door was open and the rented hospital bed stood erect with titanium rods jutting from beneath the blankets.

            I shuffled into the bedroom among my family. Mnana’s head had a line encircling it, her unconscious face pale and pained below the line, her skull a bright purple above. Never had I seen a person’s skin change color so abruptly, clearly defining “Here is where the cancer lies.” The radiation had fried the skin, had stopped the brain from growing the cells that were killing it, but at the loss of any semblance to skin. Now her brain was bright purple, cooked and hot to the touch. Her strong will was where the cancer had chosen to attack.

            The day was spent in and out of my grandmother’s room, listening to family anecdotes, playing her favorite CD (the “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” soundtrack). We moved as a pack, some with Mnana and some taking a break. We had never waited for death and were finding it hard to learn.

            I was a member of the herd. Scuttling in, taking a turn holding the cool cloth to her head, helping prepare a meal, acknowledging her pained expression but never confronting it. After dinner, we sat in the living room and I overheard my mom speaking with my aunt.

“Everyone’s said goodbye. We’ve gone in one at a time, everyone I think.”

            I hadn’t said goodbye. My shoulders hunched as I cowered at the thought. I was supposed to say goodbye? Goodbye Mnana?

Yes, say goodbye. The idea blossomed in my head as I thought of the repercussions. I couldn’t continue tomorrow, next week, next year without saying goodbye. Not without thanking her for showing me how to be independent, how to stand apart from what is expected, how to skip rocks off the Georgia strait. Mnana taught me how to do what I want and need. Was this my final lesson? I left the living room and snuck past the hushed conversations, onto myself.

I stepped past the dark hallway and into the pastel-colored room where Mnana lay. It was cluttered with blankets, books, and other vestiges of the waiting family who had passed many hours there. Orange plastic medical bottles were scattered on the foot of the bed. Her face became visible as I walked over the threshold, pale and calm. The conscious step I took into the room put me in control, let me say I wanted to be with my grandmother. No one was implying the importance of this moment anymore; I felt it resonate throughout my core. I knew what I needed. I needed to be with my grandmother.

My great aunt, the nurse, stood studying Mnana’s chart. “Hello dear.” She continued bustling about reading drug labels and straightening sheet corners. I knew I had to ask for my moment. I had to stand up, say what I wanted in bold, irreversible words.

“Ann, could I please have a moment alone with Mnana?” My heart released at my words. My breath was let out, my fists went lax. This was what I needed, to say goodbye to my grandmother. Ann shut the door behind her and I was alone. No, not alone. Mnana was there too.

 

Mnana died the next morning. She had waited for each of us to say goodbye, gave us each that final gift of closure before letting go. Her strong will protected us all for the last time that day, but her memory teaches me strength each day that follows.

Rushing to catch the plane to the memorial service a month later, my mother mentioned to me in passing, “Would you like to say anything at the service?” She continued arranging her boarding pass in her purse and straightening the magazine under her arm, not expecting my adamant response. “Yes, I would.”

I scribbled thoughts onto note cards on the airplane, and slapped the extra hair-tie dangling from my wrist around them. I slipped the bundle into my silk-lined pocket.  At the memorial service my father spoke and my aunts and uncles followed. When it came time for anyone to share memories of Mnana, I rose from the pew. My legs were sturdy beneath me, my breath quick and sharp. I walked sure-footed up the platform to the microphone and faced the sea of dark silhouettes looking back. You taught me this Mnana. You taught me to act as I feel, to not let fear or opposition chase me away. I am here now, standing tall, facing the world. I am ready.

 

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“Ruth, I need to tell you about Dodo’s doctor’s appointment.” I am in my senior year of high school. My mother stops me on a bright Sunday morning as I scamper through the kitchen gathering the ingredients to make my signature cinnamon buns. “Yeah?” I casually toss over one shoulder, balancing the gallon of milk in one hand and a cup of flour in the other. “The doctors decided she ought to have an MRI, and found a mass on her brain. They don’t know yet whether the tumor is malignant or benign but have scheduled a biopsy for next week.” The refrigerator door shut softly behind me as I lay the ingredients down on the table. My third grandmother, Dodo, now has a tumor. A brain tumor.

            I get the details from my mother of exactly what we know about the surgery. The biopsy could have detrimental effects if the surgeons were to accidentally nick a nerve or open an artery. Dodo could die by Tuesday. Each day I go over what Dodo means to me, replaying scenes of my favorite trips to the yarn store at her side or her singing before the family with her quartet. My family goes to New Jersey twice a year to be with my mother’s siblings, her father, and her mother Dodo. I would run through the house, bringing my little cousins a costume for their latest play, chatting with my aunts about school, but always reaching Dodo sitting in the living room. She would sit in her “nest”, piles of yarn and unfinished projects around her, and she would smile to me as I rounded the corner, eager to show me the blanket she’d just finished and to ask how my needlepoint was progressing.

 When my mom leaves to be with Dodo for the biopsy, I hand her the note I had written beginning “Dear Dodo”. I had stayed up the night before until the city around me was quiet, the only light from our house shining through my bedroom window. I had stayed up to write to Dodo how much the procedure scares me, and how much I have to lose. My mother grasps the note, securing it between the pages of her book, to be delivered safely to Dodo’s hands.

            The day before the biopsy I call Dodo on the phone. We chat of my newest piano song, her latest knitting project, how the summer heat is choosing to stick around this year. I smile as I hang up. My goodbye has been heard in its own subtle way, and that is what I need. I had stood up, had said what I wanted in bold, irreversible words.

Thank you Grandmother. Thank you.