MAY 2005

The MAYDAY Issue:

• No Mom Is An Island -- Lizbeth Finn-Arnold
• What Are You Afraid Of? -- Regina Walker
• I Am The Alpha Mom -- Elizabeth Katkics Thompson
• Motorcycle Momma -- Gerry Di Gesu
• Mothers and Daughters -- Stacey Greenberg

No Mom Is An Island

EXT. SECLUDED ISLAND BEACH -- DAY

A serene and beautiful island paradise -- a long stretch of white, sandy beaches, an aqua sky, rolling waves.

A WOMAN, in her mid-thirties, somewhat attractive, yet extremely unkempt, appears to be stranded -- a castaway.

The WOMAN sits in the sand, scribbling frantically on a piece of ripped notebook paper. With her lipstick she writes her S.O.S., which reads:

IS ANYONE OUT THERE? I'M HERE! I'M ALIVE.
TELL THEM THAT I'M NOT DEAD!

The Woman finishes the note, and places it in an empty Diet Coke bottle, and then seals it with a makeshift cork (i.e. a tampon). She rises and tosses the bottle into the ocean.

As the CAMERA PULLS BACK, the waves engulf the bottle and the vast ocean appears to go on and on for as far as the eye can see.

CLOSE-UP on Woman, as a single tear rolls down her cheek.

EXT. SECLUDED ISLAND BEACH – NIGHT

The Woman sits on the darkened beach, warmed by a blazing bonfire.

The waves ROAR along the beach. The Woman shivers. But something in the waves catches her attention.

She slowly rises, and then begins to run to the shoreline. She plunges into the water and reaches for the emerald green bottle in the surf. There is a message inside the bottle.

Soaking wet, the Woman hurries back to the fire, her heart pounding. She smashes the bottle on a rock and retrieves the note, which reads:

I JUST FOUND YOUR MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE.
YOU'RE NOT ALONE; I'M HERE TOO.

The Woman wipes a tear from her cheek and looks up and out over the vast ocean.

She turns over the message and continues to read:

P.S. THERE ARE MANY OTHERS OUT HERE, TOO.
WE UNDERSTAND.

The woman turns around back towards the fire and now we see that she ISN'T ALONE on the island. Her BABY BOY and TODDLER DAUGHTER are playing in the sand. The Woman rushes up to them and embraces them lovingly.

WOMAN: We're going to make it. We're going to survive this place . . .

She WEEPS.

EXT. UNITED STATES COAST GUARD SHIP -- DAY

Wrapped in warm blankets, the Woman sips hot tea on the deck of the Coast Guard ship. She looks up at her kind rescuer, a handsome young COAST GUARDSMAN.

WOMAN: Thank you so much for saving us.

COAST GUARDSMAN: Oh, well, about that. You really saved yourself. If you hadn't kept writing those notes, we might never have found you. Most of us assumed that you were dead.

WOMAN: And what about the others? Have you found the others?

CUE: DRAMATIC MUSIC

COAST GUARDSMAN: What others?

WOMAN: The ones who wrote back and kept my spirit afloat when I felt so alone. Without their voices, and words of encouragement, I surely would have died . . .

COAST GUARDSMAN: Perhaps they will be all right, wherever they are.

CUE: TRIUMPHANT AND HOPEFUL MUSIC

The Woman puts down her tea cup and goes to the edge of the ship. She looks into the orange glow of the glorious sunset and the light it casts on the swirling ocean below. She looks over at her beautiful children. And she smiles.

WOMAN: Yes, perhaps they will.

FADE OUT:

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Copyright 2005 Lizbeth Finn-Arnold
Originally published at www.literarymama.com

Lizbeth Finn-Arnold is a mother, freelance writer, and independent filmmaker who lives and works in suburban New Jersey.

What Are You Afraid Of?

“What are you afraid of?”

“I am afraid I am going to die.”

“You are. But what are you afraid of?”

My friend’s perfunctory and almost cavalier response annoyed me but I intuitively knew he meant something else.

I had a mole removed. I am always having moles and radical freckles removed it seems. I grew up with suntan oil -- the precursor to sunblock. My family and everyone around us doused themselves in suntan oil and baked throughout the summer months. The more fashionable amongst us used a three-fold silver foil contraption aimed to maximize sun exposure to the face. A golden, bronze tan was the goal and worth any price. Tanning beds were for maintenance during the winter months.

I have always had the palest skin and was horribly embarrassed about it growing up. In the 70's neighbors would shake their heads at me. “Do you ever get any sun? The vitamin D would be good for you.” Kids in school would call me an albino. I remember the Bain de Soleil model with her bronze, gleaming skin. The goal for all of us. I wonder now during my frequent trips to the dermatologist whatever happened to her. I know what happened to the Marlboro Man.

So I baked along side everyone else but instead of golden brown I became lobster red. I remember nights awake spraying Solarcaine on my burning skin. Then my skin would peel off in painful sheets and the raw skin beneath would seem even paler. Then I would bake in the sun again.

So the last number of years have been spent getting my skin regularly examined. Rogue moles and freckles have been sliced off before they could become anything too dangerous. But yesterday the one that was removed was different. The dermatologist regarded it with a startling seriousness.

“It is different than your other ones. I don’t like it. Let’s get it off.”

But it didn’t want to come off. It penetrated deep into the skin. And though the dermatologist dug for awhile, the mole held its ground. Its roots ran deeper than his digging. How deep I still don’t know.
“I can’t get it all out. I didn’t know it went so deep. I would have done a different procedure if I had suspected. I will send what we have to pathology.”

And now I wait until the report comes back sometime next week. I feel like I am in a limbo and fearing the worst.

“I am afraid I have malignant melanoma and I am going to die.” I tell my friend this though we are both aware that this is my obvious fear. It is something else he thinks I am afraid of. Something else he is trying to get at.

“But we are all going to die. You are afraid that you are going to die sooner than you expected. Is that it?”

“I guess so” I answer sheepishly. I feel like my fear has been deflated and devalued. It simply isn’t good enough for my friend. Illness and death seem huge to me. To him it is all just a matter of time.

“Yeah. I am afraid I am going to die really soon of cancer”.

I am getting upset because I feel like my friend should understand and be comforting me. Instead he is questioning me. He refuses to indulge me.

He knows me well and that is the problem. I fear so many things that I tend to approach life with a constant veil of anxiety. I am never at a loss for something to fear. I ruminate or I anxiously anticipate. Or I am asleep.

I can’t even go over with him all the tragedies that would be borne of my early demise: motherless children, a grieving family, the vast unknown that is death, a life cut short before it has been truly lived.

A life cut short before it has been truly lived.

“So what are you going to do until you get the result?”

He knows what I will probably do but somehow it is less comfortable for me to say “worry obsessively” out loud.

“I guess try to stay distracted. Be busy I guess.”

“Excellent idea!”

And now he is truly annoying me.

“Live, right? I suggest you stay distracted until you die. Whenever that is.”

So what am I really afraid of? I wonder that more earnestly now. Everything, I guess but in that case, nothing at all.

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Copyright 2005 Regina Walker

Since March 2003, Regina Walker has been a monthly contributing writer to The Philosophical Mother magazine (www.philosophicalmother.com). Her work has appeared in Hip Mama, widdershins, The Future Generation, Motherevolution, Motherload, Commie Mommie, Community Mother Magazine, Goin’ Granola, Literary Vision Magazine, Healing Mama, Bio zine, and the online magazine www.stickyourneckout.com . Her work will be featured in an upcoming issue of Lone Star Ma. She is the creator and editor of the zine "Recovering Me". She is the author of the Clinical Viewpoint column in the Substance Abuse Letter published by Pace Publications. She received her B.A. from Bennington College and her MSW from Fordham University. She can be reached at cswcasac@aol.com.

I Am The Alpha Mom . . .

Well, At Least In My House I Am

By Elizabeth Katkics Thompson

My husband was patiently waiting for his turn as he watched me from the doorway leading into our bathroom. I caught a glimpse of him in the mirror and the fascinated sort of look on his face, as if he were watching the final death throws of an animal, after it’s been terribly mauled and left in the middle of the road to die.

I finished blow drying my hair and he gave me a playful tweak.

“Ouch…hey, easy, that hurts!”

I must have sounded pitiful as he turned to leave and suspected that either he had grown tired of another disappointing attempt at his being playful, or didn’t have the stomach for road kill, after all.

“Sorry. It’s just that I don’t know how I’m going to make it through today.”

He returned to my aching side and said, “Just focus on the fact that today is Friday.”

Hey, good idea…Friday…TGIF…okay, that’ll work! So, I pulled on my loosest pair of jeans -- the pair with the hole in the left knee and frayed bell bottoms -- which I reserve and put on once a month for three days or so.

I headed out into the kitchen and silently began chanting to myself, “It’s Friday. Remember T.G.I.F. Thank God it’s Fri....”

Snap, crackle, pop!

“What the hell?” I lifted my foot and squinting rather unattractively (I wasn't wearing my lenses in my quest for comfort) while grabbing at what looked like cereal stuck to my heel. I then saw a hazy path leading into the kitchen and turned to confirm that the crushed pieces I had left behind were indeed, Cheerios.

And I started to growl, “Oh for the love of…why can’t these children eat anything without it ending up on the floor? Why do we even bother with a kitchen table?”

My husband yelled from our upstairs bedroom, “Stop! Friday, remember?”

“Yeah, right, okay…T.G.I. friggin’ F!”

I chanted again when my two oldest girls burst out of their room simultaneously begin to scream at me and each other. “Mom…she’s being rude…using my stuff…turned off the radio while I was singing…want my own room.”

I played mediator and negotiated myself right into a corner; feeling threatened, I bared my claws and sent them to their rooms. They stormed off as soon as they heard my two youngest in confrontation somewhere further behind me.

“Hope is stealing all the tape!”

“No, brudder, Hopey do!”

“Stop it…no…hey…QUIT IT!”

I quickly retrieved the dispenser, sent them to find their father and began to pick at my scotch tape covered desk. “And this is all the tape Mommy has. No more tape. Hey, and why are you doing crafts at my desk, anyway?” It’s a wreck!” I grabbed a tissue, began wiping up the glitter glue and muttered, in a low guttural sort of way, “If this morning is any indication of what the day was going to be like, I’m screwed!”

God, but I hated feeling like this, as if every single nerve in my body was on fire and rapidly dissolving all of my mental reserves -- whatever little remained -- to the point where the simplest parenting issues appeared arduous and complex. Yes, raising four children was understandably strenuous and my typically agonizing menstrual cycle had me dead-dog-tired, but I wondered if perhaps there would ever be a day when I would get a grip on this whole mothering gig, when all I wanted to do was be, well, mothered.

“Momma?”

My eleven year old spoke barely in a whisper, but I slammed my hand against the desk and jumped right out of my skin nevertheless and answered her in rather a rough tone. Her frown deepened as the tears quickly formed and began to spill over her deep brown eyes and she let her forehead drop right onto my chest.

Now, feeling very guilty as well as pathetic, I apologized, and asked her if she's okay.

“Yeah, I just needed a hug. Sorry. I woke up tired and am acting like a bitch.” I hugged her back and allowed a smile to escape as I answered, “You and me both, kid; you and me both.”

So, maybe I wasn’t ever going to get a grip, but the only thing that I cared about at that very moment was hanging on to the fact that my children didn’t care. Because, I would always be their mom, good or bad, and with continued guidance -- not to mention a constant supply of pain relief medication -- harmony could at least be understood and, with any luck, achieved.

I passed on this new revelation to my husband before he headed to work -- describing the mess, the fights and the tears I’ve encountered along my path to enlightenment, all in the matter of about five minutes and all before 8:00 o’clock in the morning.

He raised his eyebrows and said, “Well, think about it. It’s a full moon. You’re into your cycle. Holly’s hitting puberty. You know what they say about females living together?”

My face confirmed that I do not.

“How they synchronize their bodies - their cycles. It's just a matter of the beta females of the house following the alpha female’s cycle.," he continued.

I quickly did the math.

It’s feasible that, one day, my husband could quite possibly have three pre-menstrual betas and one menopausal alpha female living under the same roof. A tiny giggle in my throat erupted into a full blown laughing fit.

“Oh man…you are so screwed!”

***********************************
Copyright 2005 Elizabeth Katkics-Thompson

Elizabeth Katkics-Thompson is a mother to four children and has been married for 13 years to her husband, Pete. Liz also writes a weekly column entitled, Married With A Whole Lot of Children at Just For Mom and has had essays posted at The Imperfect Parent. You can read the ongoing adventures of her life at This Full House, the blog. Liz lives and writes in New Jersey.

Motorcycle Momma

I stare at the yellowed newspaper photo in front of me: Newark, NJ Star Ledger, Tuesday, October 3, 1933: “Women ride with Newark Motorcycle Club Corps”. And there’s my mother in the front row, hand raised holding what looks like a beer stein. There are four other women in the photo and about fifteen young men. She is twenty-one and smiling broadly.

I wish I had known the person my mom was then, but I had little interest in her stories, being self-absorbed in my own life and problems. Only now do I realize how important it is to appreciate our parents and their backgrounds, for only then can we truly understand them and in turn often understand ourselves. The woman I knew was not the happy young girl in these pictures.

I sort through the collection of snapshots of her motorcycling days -- pictures of a happy woman, smiling in every picture. Not the woman I knew later on who seemed sad, distracted, and wistful. She sits proudly on her huge cycle which I sure hope was a Harley. She’s dressed in a uniform of jodhpurs, knee-high leather boots, and a long-sleeved shirt featuring a large emblem which resembles the Harley-Davidson insignia. A jaunty beret is perched on her head. Who is this woman?

Her club traveled from Newark to rural Pennsylvania on warm Friday nights to compete in various locally sponsored races. Many of them involved “dirt-climbing” huge hills and racing on a circular dirt track. Everyone slept in the big barn on the farm where the races were held each weekend, sharing meals with the farmer’s family.

How and when did my mom become a member of a motorcycle club? It didn’t make sense. The oldest of four children, she was responsible for providing for her family since her dad was a deadbeat who rarely paid his bills, forcing the family to move in the middle of the night for endless years. She left school before eighth grade to help support the family. Where did she get the money to buy a motorcycle? And how did this self-professed “mousy, shy, and insecure” woman evolve into a person with enough confidence to ride and race a motorcycle and spend weekends with a group of men?

My mother was bitter that my dad’s four sisters never accepted her into their family. He had been married and divorced, so by marrying my mom he was ex-communicated from the Catholic Church. They never let her forget it. There was always an underlying sadness in her face, a longing for a “little more” as she said -- More income and a better job for my father who was soft-spoken, reserved, and not aggressive; more socialization with neighbors who didn’t include my parents in their plans and projects; more time away from my dad’s family whom we visited every weekend.

I remember wonderful trips to Newark to shop for Easter outfits and Christmas gifts with my mom. We traveled by bus from our suburban town and shared a special lunch in Bamberger’s, a great adventure I looked forward to each year. Mrs. Adams, a gentle and beautiful Scottish friend, provided marvelous English tea parties. But other than that, I can’t remember other special shared times or interests.

My brother is two years younger than me but since he wasn’t interested in sports at all, I became my dad’s buddy. I spent endless hours with him every weekend at softball and baseball games and we went to the movies every Friday night -- the highlight of my week. I didn’t want to be like my mom -- saying yes to a husband all the time or doing housework and food shopping and raising kids was not my idea of fun. I was going to be a famous journalist.

Years flew by. I married, had children and returned to work while mom helped me out tremendously by caring for my children. As a wife and mother, I started to empathize with the life she had led. I had wanted to be a writer and wondered what her dreams had been. But I never discovered what they were. We didn’t talk about things like that. After my dad died, she lived alone in our family home for three years and then bought a condo in a senior citizen complex. She became another person, only I was still too busy with my life to realize it.

Six years later she was diagnosed with cancer and died within the year. The number of friends who came to pay their respects at the funeral was amazing. Everyone praised her beauty and warm and caring attitude. These were friends she had found after she moved. They had shared picnics, dinners, countless bus rides, and endless laughter.

Cleaning out her apartment was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I was angry at God for taking her just as her life had become what she had always hoped it would be. As I sorted her clothes, I was amazed to see my mom for the first time in years. Bland gray, beige, and black outfits had disappeared. The closet over-flowed with bright pink, green, and flowered and striped ensembles. Shoes to match cluttered the floor. Her jewelry box was stuffed with chunky bracelets, flowered pins, pearls and bright summer necklaces.

Towels in vivid hues of red, white, and orange hung in the bathroom, replacing the utilitarian white she’d used for forty years. A plant-stand jumbled with plants nestled in the corner; black and white prints covered the walls. As I walked into her living room I was amazed to see the same vivid colors and patterns jump out at me. My mom had transformed into a beautiful butterfly in her last years and I had hardly noticed.

I feel sad that I never really knew my mother and was unable to provide her with a happier and more satisfying life. But the smiling images of her on her motorcycle and a vision of her in a bright salmon pantsuit boarding a bus with her friends for a week-long vacation fill me with joy. I find comfort in knowing that at least as a young woman and near the end of her life, my mom seemed happy and content.

**********************************************************************************
Copyright 2005 Gerry Di Gesu

Gerry is a retired school secretary whose joy is her husband, three children and four grandchildren. Her essays and poems have appeared in a variety of publications, journals and anthologies including The New York Times, Catholic Digest and Cape Women Magazine. Her recently published collection of essays – “Keep Quiet, You’re Only A Girl” – is available on the web from iUniverse.com, amazon.com and barnesandnoble.com. E-mail Gerry at digesu7@comcast.net

Mothers and Daughters

Satchel is standing on the sofa in his full superhero regalia—tie-dye cape, homemade Elvis belt, and sparkly, red “Dorothy” shoes—beaming as the four grandmothers ooh and aah over his every move.

“Look at this,” he says as he hurls his lithe toddler body to the floor, barely missing his nine-month-old brother who is sucking contentedly on a toy frog. “Ta dah!” he exuberantly announces. The four grandmothers, clutching their cameras, couldn’t be more thrilled.

My mom had called just moments before pleading for a ten minute visit. “I know it’s almost bedtime, but I wanted to bring the girls by to see my boys,” she says. My new year’s resolution involved being more laid back so I force an enthusiastic, “Sure!” The girls, as she says, are her cousin Nancy, her best childhood friend Marilyn (a.k.a. Muscles), and long-time family friend Patricia. They live in New Orleans, where my mom is from, and they have all come to visit my ninety-eight-year-old grandmother who is on her deathbed. Sort of.

Granny’s been in the hospital for nearly a month with pneumonia, but continues to surprise everyone, including the doctors. Just when it seems all hope is lost, she makes a breakthrough and talk in the hallways turns from ordering morphine to ordering discharge papers to send her back to the nursing home. As a result, my mom has been holding vigil next to her bed—feeding her, giving her sips of water, holding her hand, doing whatever she can to make her feel better.

I’m angry with my mom—I think she’s being a bit of a martyr. I hate that she feels like she can’t leave the hospital. I hate that I feel guilty because I can’t be there more to relieve her. I hate that what I really want is for her to babysit my kids while my husband and I go to the movies. I feel frazzled and burned out—I have two small children, a full-time job, a messy house, and no free time. I go so far as to think if Granny dies I’ll get three paid days off of work.

By the time the four grandmothers arrive to theoretically say good-bye, my grandmother is
sitting up in bed, chatting with her favorite nurse (and namesake) Dorothy. “You take such good care of me,” she says in her most upbeat tone. “Give me a kiss before you go.”

My grandmother knows how to turn on the charm when she needs to. Until we moved her here three years ago, I thought this charm was her default mode. We went to New Orleans several times a year to visit, and my grandmother was always so positive and pleasant. She was an inspiration. Five foot two, no more than a hundred pounds, legally blind and barely able to walk, she was a force to be reckoned with. She had to be. My grandfather was unable to walk, talk, or do anything on his own. Writing this out, I can’t believe the two of them lived in their own apartment until they were ninety-five years old.

My grandparents lived in a twelve story building on St. Charles Avenue, not far from the French Quarter, in a 200 square foot apartment. Even though it was small, I loved visiting. When we were little, my twin sister, Tracey, and I would spend a few weeks in the summer with my grandparents. They slept on one sofa bed and we slept on the other. They let us stay up late eating ice cream and watching M*A*S*H and The Rockford Files. In the mornings we giggled as we watched our grandfather do his calisthenics. There was no yard, but we would play in the halls for hours—running or doing gymnastics. My grandmother took us with her to the bridge club twice a week while she ran the games. On the way home, she bought us snow cones and 30 minute sessions at the trampoline park. My grandfather bought us lunches at the drugstore, took us to the movies, and let us bet on the horse races. I don’t remember ever being bored under my grandparents’ care.

As the buildings’ residents grew older, management tried to assist with their needs. They opened a cafeteria downstairs and they had nursing aides on staff to help clothe and bathe invalids like my grandfather. And lucky for us, Marilyn, Patricia, and Nancy helped with the shopping, doctors visits, and other special needs. It wasn’t until my grandmother fell and broke her leg that any of us thought of moving them to a nursing home. The break was bad enough to require surgery, several weeks in the hospital, and months of rehab. My grandmother wouldn’t be able to take care of herself, much less my grandfather.

My mom and I scoped out the nursing homes in Memphis. I wrote my grandmother a letter telling her how fabulous Heartland was. I described it as the perfect cross between apartment living and full service hospital-type care. She and my grandfather could have a private room (that was bigger than their efficiency apartment), participate in numerous activities, and eat three prepared meals either in their room or in the cafeteria. I hinted at long afternoons with me (or my mom or one of my two sisters) by her side listening to tales from her childhood, multigenerational “family” dinners, daytrips to the nearby casinos, and so on. By the time I was done, my grandmother could hardly wait to leave her tiny apartment in the only city she had ever known.

Once my mom and older sister got my grandparents settled in Heartland, Tracey and I were deployed to New Orleans to clean out their apartment and return with whatever we could fit in the back of Tracey’s Ford Explorer. We spent our first night eating Popeye’s chicken and drinking frozen daiquiris at the seedy bar next door while playing the slot machines in the back corner. My mom and older sister had done most of the work for us—the apartment was pretty much stripped except for two adjustable beds, the TV, and a few random pieces of furniture and some odds and ends. We decided to have a yard sale the next day and see if we could at least cover our gas money home.

Walking through their building for one of the last times, it seemed that my grandparents were moving just in time. Their floor had peeling, stained wallpaper and smelly carpets. The lobby had been completely gutted. The elevators were unreliable at best. The nursing aides were no longer being coordinated by the administrator. The cafeteria was only open for lunch. Word was that the building’s new management was desperately trying to attract younger residents and (inexplicably) book special events like wedding receptions.

After chatting with several residents, assuring them that our grandparents were safe and sound in Memphis, Tracey and I lined up our wares in the darkly lit hall outside their apartment door. Among other things, we had two retro folding chairs, an art deco table, a plant stand, a walker, a portable toilet, some crutches, and a few lamps. In order to boost sales, we hung up signs in the lobby that read: “Moving sale: Everything must go!” And then in small print: “Free Ensure and Depends with purchase.” We bought a dozen boiled crabs, a twelve pack of Abita Amber, some smokes and waited.

Most of our customers were friends of my grandmother’s who just wanted a memento. Old ladies lingered in the hall, staring at the remains of my grandparents’ apartment with tears in their eyes. My sister and I promised to pass on their well wishes as we pocketed their money. The kitchen staff purchased a few things and a Tulane student came by and bought most of what was left. We dragged the last bits to the incinerator at the end of the hall. Tracey and I spent our last few hours in our grandparents’ apartment lying on their twin beds nestled under worn towels watching Trading Spaces. Once the Medicare reps came for the beds, we loaded up the TV and hit the road back to Memphis.

Upon my return, it was clear that my grandmother did not fall in love with the nursing home as I had expected. In a cast from her hip to her ankle and totally out of her element, my once tough as nails granny was a quivering mess. My mom, my sisters and I worked double time trying to make her transition as smooth as possible. I came every night at dinnertime to make sure she ate; my older sister taped the Game Show Channel so she’d have something to watch on TV; my mom hung pictures, stocked the fridge with familiar food items, and befriended employees far and wide in the hopes that they would look favorably upon my grandmother; Tracey brought her kids by to run around, give kisses, and say cute things.

Complaining seemed to be the only thing my grandmother was excelling at. She told us that the food was gross (She had very few teeth, and even fewer taste buds.); the workers were inattentive (She wanted someone to sit next to her bed and jump when she said, “Jump!”); the other residents were black (What happened to the woman who wore a “No Dukes” button in the nineties to protest the candidacy of the well known Klansman David Duke?); Grandfather was suffering (He was actually doing better than ever, relatively speaking, but she was obsessed with his every move—or lack thereof).

Instead of hearing stories of her days growing up on Tchoupatoulis Street, I heard a detailed litany of the wrongs that had beseeched her and my grandfather that day. Interestingly enough, when Pat or Nancy, or Marilyn would call, I would get a glimpse of the sunshiny grandmother I knew in New Orleans. That’s when I realized that the shoe was on the other foot now—the sunshiny grandmother I thought I had only existed on the phone.

I felt stupid for thinking that all those years of taking care of my grandfather in that tiny apartment were easy for her. She just never let on how bad it was. Not to me anyways. I’m sure Pat, Nancy, and Marilyn heard about it on a daily basis. I was getting to know my grandmother again—not the one I saw a few times a year or talked to on the phone, but the one who carried the weight of the world, well the weight of my grandfather, on her shoulders everyday.

My older sister stopped visiting my grandparents because she said she couldn’t take the constant insults from my grandmother. Tracey started timing her visits so that she could be out in ten minutes or less. I found out I was pregnant and was soon too tired to do anything but squeeze in the bed next to Granny and say “uh-huh” every few minutes while Who Wants to be a Millionaire blared from her tiny television.

My “condition” did provide some sunshine in my grandmother’s gloomy new existence.
She told me what motherhood was like when she was young. After helping to raise her siblings, she was in no hurry to have any of her own. She married late and told my grandfather that she planned to work just as hard as he did, and that he shouldn’t expect to come home and find dinner on the table. He agreed, and they ate at restaurants every night.

When she got pregnant, she was a schoolteacher. It was a faux pas to be a pregnant schoolteacher, so she was forced to take two years off. That actually sounded pretty good to me. My grandmother showed me a ten inch scar running from her navel to her panty line from the surgery that removed my mother from her womb. She said that my mother had no intentions of coming out on her own. “In my day, women spent a month in the hospital after having a baby,” she said. That didn’t sound so good.

When I told her I planned to have a homebirth she thought I was crazy. “Why would you want to use a midwife when you could have a doctor?” she asked. When I pointed out that she was probably born at home, it made it seem slightly less crazy to her, but still incredibly unappealing. I held my breath and hoped that my baby would be more cooperative than my mother had been in 1938.

Thankfully, he was. But the thought of taking my golden boy to the germ-infested nursing home made my visits to my grandmother fewer and farther between. I felt guilty, but I was so wrapped up in my new role as mother, the guilt wasn’t enough to make me visit more than once every week or two. It actually worked out well for me. My grandmother found it hard to complain when there was a sweet little baby in her arms, so our visits were much more pleasant than they had been. However, it didn’t work out so well for my mom who now had the sole responsibility of keeping my grandmother happy.

This pretty much became the status quo over the next two years—my grandfather died after a bout of pneumonia, I had another kid, and my sisters had their own reasons for not visiting. Every once in awhile, my mom seemed like she couldn’t do it one more day, but for the most part, she took it in stride. She got to know some of the other residents and arranged for them to sit with my grandmother at lunch and visit her in the evenings. My mom got the ladies in her office to buy Christmas presents for the nursing home and she always invited a group of my grandmother’s friends to go eat next door on Friday nights. She brought my grandmother to major family gatherings, took her to ladies’ lunches, and even to the casino on Mother’s Day. Basically she wore herself, and my grandmother, out.

But this was nothing compared to the state my mom was in after six weeks of spending nearly 24/7 at my grandmother’s hospital bedside. I told my husband that when and if the tables were turned, there was no way that I was going to sit by my mom’s hospital bedside 24/7. But we both knew that was a lie.

I got my act together and took the boys to the hospital as much as I could. As the weeks passed, I could see my grandmother deteriorating even though my mom insisted she was doing great. I don’t think she could see the changes as much as I could since she was there around the clock. One afternoon, I went alone so that my mom could take a break. My grandmother clutched my hand and told me how frightened she was. “Frightened of what?” I asked. But she couldn’t say.

I guess being blind, 98, and in an unfamiliar place was enough to make her feel insecure. I planned to stay until she fell asleep, but every time I tried to slide my hand from under hers she woke up—just like an infant. My mom told me later that my grandmother was waking up in the middle of the night, crying for her own mother.

On a whim, Pat drove to town one Sunday evening. Again, my grandmother seemed to be doing well. She and my mom spent the night at my mom’s house marveling at my grandmother’s strength. The next day Pat went to the hospital and my mom went to work. At lunch my grandmother aspirated while trying to eat. By four o’clock I got a phone call saying come quick.

As I drove to the hospital—just a few minutes from my office—I had a feeling that my grandmother was watching me. I wasn’t surprised when I opened her door and found her already gone, my mom and Pat crying. I cried too. “I didn’t think she could really die,” I said. I went to hold her hand one last time. It was still warm.

My older sister came a few minutes later, crying before she was even in the door. “I didn’t think she could really die,” she said. Tracey came a few minutes later and echoed our words. It was sad and funny at the same time. I asked my mom what we were supposed to do now since my grandmother planned to donate her body to science.

“Granny changed her mind last week,” my mom said. “She told me she didn’t want to be cut up. She asked to be buried with her mother.”

I couldn’t help smiling. Of course I thought and wondered if I shouldn’t reconsider trying for a girl.

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Copyright 2005 Stacey Greenberg

Stacey Greenberg is an anthropologist, writer, and creator of the zine, Fertile Ground: For People who Dig Parenting. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband and two young sons.