By Mia Steere
Spring 2007 Kaplan Award Winner
I pull my silver Jetta up next to a well-manicured lawn. I hear rubber scrape cement. Damn. I have come too close to the curb. As usual. There are probably four tires-worth of rubber smashed onto curbs around Seattle because of me. I have no peripheral vision, and I am a terrible parallel parker. My blind spot is about three feet long. My friends say it’s because I’m Asian. They all laugh, but I don’t really get it. I would think that my eye shape – because this is clearly what they are referring to – would cause my peripheral vision to be superior. Whatever the reason, my parking abilities do leave something to be desired, and my poor, delaminating tires give testimony to this fact.
After eking back and forth for about five minutes, I give up on saving a couple inches of rubber and throw my car in “park.” As I jerk up on the handle of my emergency brake, I notice a fluttering in my chest. Ignoring – or trying to ignore – this physical warning sign, I close the door with a determined hand. “Beep beep,” the doors automatically lock. The sound, which normally goes unnoticed, makes me jump. I clutch my purse as though it can somehow save me.
“You okay, honey?” My fiancé Brain, my knight in shining armor, places his hand against the small of my back. Such a small gesture, it fills me with a renewed sense of confidence. My mother’s car is already here; the bright, turquoise-blue hunk of metal, circa 1990, is hard to miss. I glance at it, and my sense become overwhelmed. The smell of my mother: Sebastian hair spray, Mary Kay lipstick, face powder and – until recently – eucalyptus cough drops. She used to suffer from a year-round, dry cough. We never could figure it out. Secretly, I always thought she was faking. And then our family cat died. My mother doesn’t cough anymore.
My eyes grow misty. In the late morning light, that electric-blue car has never looked more comforting.
As we – my fiancé and I – slowly make our way up the stone pathway, I am distracted by the well-manicured front landscaping. The bushes are trimmed, and the stone garden looks neat and tidy. I wonder who has been doing the yard work. Whoever it is, they have yet to notice the large rubber spider still hanging out in the middle of the stone-paved center, a creepy-crawly ode to Halloween. It is strangely out of place; we are all dressed in our Easter finery. The more I stare at it, the more I am struck by its sinister appearance. “Get a grip,” I mentally tell myself. “It’s just a stupid Halloween decoration. Brian notices me staring. “Scary, huh?” he says.
He has no idea.
The front door has a wavy gold handle, and the paint matches the rest of the house: stark white, with a faint trim. Very clean, sterile. I slowly move my hand, force my finger to press the doorbell. As we wait, I am filled with trepidation. My body temperature rises, and I notice a slight shakiness take over my entire being. The door opens. We never heard footsteps, because the carpet is so thick and soft. We are greeted by a smiling Polish woman. Her English is not great, but she recognizes me. I have been here before. Many times. And yet, not nearly enough. I take two steps into the tranquil front room. The walls are painted a soft, soothing color. There are a few fake flowers in a vase, some small table decorations artfully displayed. It is clear that someone has been trying to add a bit of style to the place. The room, airy and warm, has an inviting glow. I take another step, and my heart begins to ache.
“Hey guys,” my mother’s cheerful voice greets us as we come deeper into the room. “Let’s go see if she’s awake.” My mom looks perfectly at ease here, sunny and smiling and beautiful; she is always smiling. I will always remember her as happy. I can remember so few times when my mother isn’t smiling; someone has died, or she’s watching a sad movie. Movies always get her.
My mother hardly ever cries. But I know she must be sad sometimes.
Open Heart Adult Family Home: this is where Grandma Gilson, my mother’s mother, lives. Grandma has been here since the winter of 2005, when Grandpa was taken by cancer. The cancer he fought so hard against, for his wife. His “Ya-hootie.” It seems like everyone these days is dying from cancer. I think it’s a pretty bad way to go. But there are worse. I guess there’s always worse. We got to say goodbye to Grandpa, and he got to say goodbye to us, in his own way. I will never forget that day in the hospital, that hazy feeling that glosses over reality. And my mother; so strong for us. For me. She knows how much I hate hospitals. I wonder if she ever got to really say goodbye. This place, it’s not really a hospital, but the people here are broken.
Before Grandpa died, and Grandma still lived with him in their brown condominium, he took care of her. Grandma has Alzheimer’s disease. Well, she “probably” has Alzheimer’s, according to the doctors who have examined her. Her condition is the “slow, progressive form;” symptoms were not immediate, and hard to notice at first. My mom says that people who have the disease try to hide it. So, as near as we can tell, Grandma has had the disease since about 2000, even though she wasn’t diagnosed until three years later. Grandpa knew for sure that Grandma was having problems when she couldn’t cook, says Mom. Until then, it was just little things, hardly noticeable. But when Grandma couldn’t follow a recipe properly, that was when he knew, and he told my mom.
If Grandma only had the memory problem, she would be in better shape than she is now, but she also fell a few years back; her vertebrae collapsed. She has become almost completely immobile. Grandma can’t walk, and her feet are turning in and twisted. I remember when we tried to have her wear a brace to keep it straight. It hurt her so bad. I used to hate watching, but my dad would put I on her, and he was so gentle. He should have been a doctor; my dad would have been a really great doctor. Sometimes I wonder if he would have been, but he got drafted into the war when he was younger; he was a coreman. He doesn’t talk about it much, but I bet that really messed him up.
“War is hell,” my dad always says. I believe him.
My parents picked the Open Heart Adult Family home for my Grandma after a lot of research. She needs 24-hour care, or else my parents would have brought her home. For her needs, they just aren’t capable of offering her the care she requires. Instead, they chose a small, in-home facility where she is given a lot of attention and won’t be overwhelmed by large crowds of people. Grandma is startled easily, and gets agitated when she is surrounded by a lot of other people. Especially people she doesn’t know or recognize. She still recognizes my mom, and me, too. She is pretty good about remembering who we all are.
We are outside my parent’s summer home on the Columbia River, and I’m asking my mom about her relationship with my grandma. Mom visits Grandma about two times a week; more if she can. “I tell her stories,” Mom says. “I become an extrovert.” Mom has read a lot about dealing with Alzheimer patients; they can’t respond very well. Instead of conversing back and forth, Mom sings and prays with Grandma, and tells her about what she did that day. My mom says that Grandma can understand things in the moment; she just can’t remember them for very long. “She makes comments; she understands more than we would give her credit for,” says Mom.
Grandma still experiences a full range of emotions, my mom says. Since Grandma can’t retain new information, joy and grief are relived each time. When my grandpa died, my mom would tell her, and she would be sad and cry. A second later, she would forget and be happy. Then, she would ask where my grandpa was. My mom would have to tell her again, and the cycle would repeat itself. Now, my mom just tells Grandma that he went somewhere, and changes the subject. That way, my grandma forgets that she was looking for him, and my mom doesn’t have to put her through that sadness over and over again. My mom doesn’t really tell my grandma anything sad; when her friends pass away, my mom doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t think it would do any good; grandma wouldn’t remember, and it would just make her sad.
“She would never want to live in this way,” says my mom. “I think there are times that she understands that she can’t do anything anymore.” I recall the time my mom told Grandma that Mother’s Day was coming up, and Grandma started to cry. I am pretty sure my mom is right.
The person who suffers from my grandma’s Alzheimer’s the most is not my grandma, though; I think that it hurts my mom the most. She says that it’s hard, because she can’t share things that are meaningful. “I get all upset,” says Mom. “I can’t say goodbye, I can only enjoy the time we have left.” My mom says that my grandma can’t reciprocate, and my mother wouldn’t want to put her through that sadness and frustration. Mom starts to cry, and I think that this is good; my mom should have time to cry. She doesn’t have to be so strong all the time. My dad reaches over and holds her hand. I think about my grandpa, and how it changed him when my grandma got sick. He was always a wonderful grandpa, but he softened a lot when he had to start taking care of Grandma.
How has this experience changed my mom? “It makes older people more endearing to me, especially old friends,” she says.
Mostly, my mom says that she didn’t appreciate her mom as much as she does now. When I tell her that Grandma knows, she nods. “I know, it’s normal,” says Mom. “She knows.” Her voice is wobbly and I am feeling terrible for putting her through this. I tell her that we don’t have to talk about it anymore; we can talk about something else. She laughs through her tears, and says, “Yeah, this is hard!” I gather up my thoughts, along with my pen and paper. I think about everything I’ve just heard. And I thank my grandma, in my heart, for reminding me to remember, to appreciate my mother.