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Exercises

To Grandmother's House We Go    

by Barbara Wahlberg

    It's a beautiful summer morning. The girls pile out of the car. I shoo them, telling them to behave. They are at that silly age; nine and seven. Their laughter is so genuine, so full of life. No one should reprimand this sort of fun. We walk into the building. I stop at the front desk to sign in and then we head toward the elevators. The girls are squirming, poking at each other, softly screaming, gleeful. "They are full of the devil," as the old expression goes. They are familiar with this trip.

    The elevator doors open, we step out onto the second floor and pass the nurses' desk. There are four older women sitting in wheelchairs facing the nurses' station. One is almost comatose； two are shrunken with age, and one seems too young and spry to be here. They all notice the girls. You can't miss them with their flowing strawberry blond hair. The children are like two beacons of light flashing through their day, which would otherwise fade within the fog of yesterday and tomorrow.

    "Come here, sweeties," the spry woman calls to them. "How beautiful." Eleanor, my youngest, runs up to the woman and hugs her. It's all right, we know her. She is always sitting here. Her name is Evelyn, and she loves the girls. She reaches out, touches Eleanor's hair like it is some elixir of life, and smiles. "Beautiful," she repeats.

    "Here to see Grandma?" someone else pipes in.

    "Yes," I say.

    "Nanny," the girls correct in unison.

    The comatose woman next to Evelyn begins to moan. Eleanor fidgets uncomfortably, slips out of Evelyn's arms, and runs down the hall. Corinne runs after her. I wave my hand good-bye and follow them.

    Nanny is in her room. I can hear the sounds of surprise and happiness as I near the door. The girls are hugging and kissing her when I walk in. She is crying...as usual.

    "Barbara!" she shouts, "Ah, how nice, how nice."

    I understand this communication, half garbled as it is. There are so few words I understand the first time she says them. She usually has to repeat herself a few times before I get it.

    "Hi, Nann." I bend down to kiss her, hug her. "Give Nanny her present, girls."

    Corinne hands Nanny the gift bag. In their excitement, the two girls start tearing the tissue paper out of the top.

    "Slow down," I tell them, "Nann can do it."

    "We just want to help, Mom," Eleanor retorts.

    "Okay, okay," Nanny reassures me.

    "Look, Nanny, perfume," Eleanor holds up a bottle of cologne.

    "Yeah, and powder, and lotion, and shampoo," adds Corinne. She pulls the bag open wide so her great-grandmother can see inside.

    "Oh, my favorite. Oh, you shouldn't do this." She starts to cry, again.

    "Don't cry, Nann." I get up from the side of her bed to comfort her. "You know I always keep you supplied in Soft Musk."

    She loves Avon's Soft Musk. She has worn it for as long as I can remember. I've been giving it to her for Christmas for years. Now, when I visit, I always bring her a few things to cheer her up. I remember how she used to cover herself with this scent. When you walked into her apartment, the air was filled with this subtle fragrance. When I dropped by for lunch, she would still be fresh from her shower. I could smell the musk cologne mingling with talcum powder and mint toothpaste when she put her arms around me to say hello, and to give me a big kiss. She smelled so fresh and clean. So good. Now, as I pull away to smooth down her wiry gray hair, she no longer smells so familiar. Her breath is not so sweet. No longer is she a melange of pleasant aromas； she smells of soap, and hospital and urine.

    I dry her eyes with a tissue. The girls mill around. They are used to her tears by now. She begins to smile, again.

    "How are you?"

    "Good, Nanny, busy."

    "Are you with your mother?"

    "Yes, for a few days."

    "How's your husband?"

    "Good, Nann, working hard in Boston."

    We converse back and forth like this for a few minutes. The simple sentences are easier to deal with. Once in a while I ask her to repeat what she has said. I can see her frustration mounting. Usually, I try to dominate the conversation so she doesn't have to speak.

    "Do you want to take a walk outside?" I ask.

    "Yeah, let's go outside. I can show Nanny my gymnastics." Eleanor jumps up and down, eager to show off her skills.

    "You're such a show-off, Eleanor," says Corinne, reproachfully.

    "Shut-up," I say, in that natural way that mothers say shut-up, "She can show Nanny what she can do."
"Well, what about me?"

    "You can show Nanny how you can dance." I smooth the edges of their sibling rivalry.

    Nanny shakes her head and smiles at their feuding. Some things never change.

    I unlock her wheelchair and secure her paralyzed leg onto the footrest so it doesn't get dragged along on the floor.

    "Can I push, can I push?" pleads Eleanor.

    "No!" I say as firmly as possible.

    When we get outside, we settle under some large maple trees. The breeze is wonderful and the late morning sun is perfect. Eleanor immediately begins to perform her gymnastics. Nanny watches, laughs.

    "Be careful," she shouts clearly, as Eleanor turns multiple cartwheels. Nann almost sounds like her old self, "My God, look at her." She looks toward me with her eyes wide open in amazement at what Eleanor can do.

    "I miss you," I say to her as she focuses her attention once more on my daughter. She hasn't heard me. She is deaf in her left ear, even with a hearing aid. Maybe she has heard me － I don't know, but she hasn't acknowledged my statement. "I miss you," I think to myself, especially now that it is summer. The zucchini are ready in the garden. I wish you were visiting me, instead of me coming ...here. I wish you were cooking away in my kitchen. Fresh tomato sauce, fried zucchini over steaming pasta in garlic and oil. I think I gained ten pounds every time you came to stay with me. You are the best cook in the world. Everything I know I learned from you. I stop thinking and turn to her, I take her hand.

    "Richard's garden is beautiful this year." I tell her. "I made zucchini and pasta last week. I can't resist it even if I do have to fry. It was delicious, I thought of you as we feasted."

    She laughs, but I can see I made her sad for one moment. "What else is he growing?"

    "Tomatoes, lots, so I can make fresh sauce. Cabbage, onions, fenocchio, eggplant, green beans. Too much for me to cook."

    "It's all good for you," she tells me. "Eat all those good things." She lifts her other arm in a flourish as she gives me this advice. It is in a brace to keep it from curling in on itself because she does not have full use of it.

    I watch her as she watches my children. I remember her as she was, strong and opinionated, always busy, cooking. I remember lunches at her apartment, sitting around the table with my cousins and aunts, my mother, all the women. The little ones eating cookies or half eaten sandwiches. The table full of food: roasted peppers in garlic and oil, cold cuts, contadina salad, Italian bread and onion rolls. There was laughter and gossip.

    The spirit of my grandfather hovered about us. I could hear him. "Ba-ba-ra-ba, (his pet name for me), eat, EAT!!"

    He's not here, anymore. Papa Joe cannot come here. We left him behind in the apartment when Nanny had her stroke and went into the nursing home. We remember him, we cannot forget him. But his spirit cannot live here in this uniform and sterile place without the smell of coffee and garlic. We are truly alone.

    "Mom, I'm hungry," Eleanor leans into my lap and makes her appeal face to face. "Can we go to McDonald's?"

    "Yes," I say, almost unconsciously, as I force myself back to reality. I look at my watch. It is eleven thirty. I must get Nanny back to her room for lunch. I get up from the bench reluctantly, not because I am sad to be going, but because I know what will happen next.

    We roll Nanny back to the second floor and bring her down the hall to her room. She is clutching Corinne's hand. When we get to her room, I ask her if she wants me to turn on the television. Her head is bent over, she shakes her head "no." I remind her that lunch will be here soon, but she doesn't look at me. She starts to sob into her hand.

    "Nanny," I say, like I've said dozens of times before, "please don't cry. Please..." That's all I can say. I can't say "you'll be home soon," or "we'll see you soon," because that wouldn't be true. I might not see her for six more months. I live too far away.

    And she will not be going home because home is no longer there. No one can take her home, either. It's not that her children's lives are too busy, it's because no one really has the strength and endurance to handle the difficulties involved with taking care of a woman who is incontinent and partially paralyzed. I understand that. She doesn't. She cries. I know she feels like she has been deserted. She hasn't. This is just how it must be.

    I give her a hug. The girls hug and kiss her good-bye. Sweet, sweet Eleanor tells her to stop crying because she is making her sad. I tell the girls to wait for me by the nurses’ station, I will be right out. I bend down one more time to say good-bye. "You're my best friend," I remind her, something I once told her when I was four years old. She used to visit me on her way home from work. I loved her so much, I love her even more, now. She chuckles through her tears. I head out the door without turning around.

    My mother once called me on the phone. She told me Nanny was giving her three grown daughters a hard time. She is also uncooperative with the nurses, and always upsets her roommates.

    My mother is very upset about what has happened to her mother. She told me this was not the mother she remembered. Her mother always cared about herself, always looked her best, cared about her body to the point of being fastidious. She told me how Grandpa had told his daughters on his deathbed that their troubles were just beginning. "Your mother," he told them, "is a very pampered woman. I gave her everything. I did everything for her. She is going to expect the same from you girls." Then, he died.

    She never really took care of herself after that, healthwise, that is. The doctor told my mother and aunts that she did not take her high blood pressure medicine as prescribed. He believed that was the cause of her stroke. Her daughters believe she brought the stroke on herself so someone would have to take care of her. What she didn't count on was the severity of the stroke. Now, someone is taking care of her. It's just not one of her daughters.

    "She's suffering," my mother cried into the phone. "Why didn't she just die? Why does God let her go through this torment?"

    "I don't know," was all I could say. It was all the comfort I could give her.

    I pull out of the parking lot. "McDonald's?" I shout.

    "McDonald's!" the girls agree.

    "Here we go."

    "Mom?" asks Eleanor. "Is Nanny okay?"

    "Yes." I reassure her. "Don't worry, she'll be all right." And I wonder if Nanny will be. I ran out so fast I don't think she saw me leave. I imagine she is still looking down into her hands, or perhaps she is now calmly eating her lunch. I remember how she looked when she was young, when I was three and four. Beautiful, in her early fifties, stopping by in her yellow and white' 59 Dodge, black, cat's eye sunglasses shading her Latin eyes, red lipstick, black hair neatly coifed, sweet-smelling, laughing as I toddled toward her, holding out her long slim arms. She was my best friend.

    (2 125 words)

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