In Memoriam

I'm sad to say that my sweet, funny "Dutchy" little German Grandma passed away this past week on her 97th birthday. She was a wonderful person who had, in the last years of her life, become trapped by a body that failed to work and refused to let go.

The Alzheimers dementia really took Grandma away from us years ago. She began to withdraw into herself while I was in college--I have since been told that is normal, that Alzheimers patients often do so in the early stages to avoid showing they are having memory problems. Then for several years she pretended she was going deaf, so as not to answer difficult questions. Then she became irritable and angry: something was wrong and she no longer quite recalled what or why and whose fault it was, but being around people who expected her to remember things was profoundly disturbing.

Then she sort of gave up fighting it. She was sweet and vague when I got married (she was living alone then but spent long, long visits with my mother and uncle), sweet and vaguer when I handed her my newborn baby 5 years later (she was living with my uncle's family but still taking long visits with my mother). I'm not sure she knew who my baby was supposed to be--her great-granddaughter--as she was more or less regularly calling me by her sister's name by then.

Not long after that, it became impossible to care for her at our family homes, and she went into the nursing home. They were marvelous with her and took excellent care of her. We deliberately chose not move her from her hometown--in fact, the nursing home was only about two blocks from her house--so she would be surrounded by folks who knew her and had a good regard for her, though most of the family had to travel some to visit with her. She is--was--such a sweet person the nursing home staff all began to call her "Granny." Doubtless, she enjoyed the affection, but was somewhat confused when my cousin and I, her real granddaughters, would stop by and call her "Grandma." She called my daughter (who was named after her, at least after her middle name) by my cousin's name, then by mine, then my mother's. She stopped calling me by any name at all. By then she was living firmly in the past and even that was becoming shaky.

She had some excitement once, when my mother told her to look who had come to see her: myself and my husband Jeff. I was startled at how eager she was to see him. I stirred not the tiniest bit of recognition, that visit, but she was thrilled that he was there. She had shrunk to a tiny little figure in a wheelchair by then, and his nearly six and a half feet of height towered over her until he squatted down to see her. Her eyes just blazed and she reached out to touch his face as he talked quietly to her. It was only later that my mother reminded me that Grandma's grandfather, her favorite grandfather, her beloved widowed grandfather who lived with her family for a good while and babysat for Grandma and her little brother, was nicknamed "Jeff." To me, William Jefferson Pickens had always been just a name in my family tree. Suddenly, the man was living and breathing with all his life history, right there--tall, thin, dark haired; and though Jeff had a mustache and my husband does not, my husband suddenly became him, just for a short while, to my grandma's mind. She must have felt like a little girl, whose granddad got down on her eye-level to talk with her and pay attention to her. I've always held a special affection for that particular name on my tree, since then, because he meant so much to Grandma and she loved him so dearly that his very name lifted the heavy dark curtain in her mind for a moment.

I have two special memories of her last several years, after she had really forgotten how to speak. The family tried, the nurses tried, visiting friends tried, everyone tried to get her to keep talking, but Grandma just stopped speaking.

But I recall taking my little girl, about 3 or 4 years old at the time, to see Grandma. I had dressed my daughter in a cute flouncy little dress and made sure her soft hair was combed nicely, then took her in to the nursing home for a visit. Mother walked ahead and I followed, holding my daughter's hand, a little more slowly since children are a welcome sight at the nursing home and many of the residents wanted to say hello and touch my daughter's hair or cheek. I will say, that might have been an ordeal for a shy child or a nightmare for a fearful one, and I would have carried her in my arms if that had been the case, but my fearless little ray of sunshine just skipped along, chirped "hello!" whenever someone stopped her, shook hands politely with the old folks who offered, and tolerated the various gentle pats and touches with great aplomb. When we reached Grandma and my daughter trotted up to see her, Grandma exclaimed, "Oh! Pretty...pretty!" as my little girl gave her a hug. Which is a wonderful, comforting memory to me--the sight of her great-grandchild stirred her to speech.

And I recall going in alone to see her maybe four or five years ago, playing the piano for her a little bit, then talking to her as she ate her lunch. I told her about our drive to get there, about what I had been doing lately, about my daughter's school, about my husband's work (although I sincerely doubt Grandma would have grasped much about the computer geek stuff even if she had been "with it" at the time). Then I patted her hand and looked her in the eye, and said, "I love you, Grandma," and she returned the look, squeezed my hand, just the tiniest bit of pressure, and said, "y-y-yes." Which was quite clearly the moral equivalent of "I love you too and I would tell you how much if I were able!" It was not vague, it was not an automatic response, it was quite clear and directly to me, and it was not easy for her to do. I think it may have been the last thing she ever said. But that memory also brings me comfort.

And so, I'll miss her. But I don't mourn her passing the same way I might have done if she had died suddenly while still in her prime. For the family, we saw the light in her eyes grow dim and go out (with occasional very brief embers glowing) long before her body stopped breathing. We've mourned the passing of the real person, that spark that made her her, for years now. Now we can rejoice with her, as her cage has opened, her spirit has taken flight, and she can return "up Home" for a real family reunion and to meet the Lord. May we someday, too, get an invitation to the Great Reunion and see her again.