Little Grandma
Jane’s grandmother Lillian is 93. We call her “Little Grandma”, a name that evolved from her great-granddaughter Arabella thinking everybody was saying “Grandma Little” instead of “Grandma Lil”. I suppose one of the oddities of being a grandparent or great-grandparent is that you are suddenly and forever after known by a name that is the result of a child’s early explorations with language.
Little Grandma is a cool old bird. At 93, she’s still all there mentally. Yes, she’ll occasionally forget the name of whom she’s talking about, but she’s with it enough to get frustrated about it. She’ll be talking to someone and start to grasp for their name. She’ll finally say, “Oh, I know who you are.” And it’s OK, because I know she knows who I am. But even if she didn’t quite know, that would be OK, too.
It’s been a rough year for Lil. She took a lot of pride in living in the same house since 1940 or so, but it’s hard to live alone when you’re 93. It’s even harder when you stop driving, something she did the year before when her car hit an immovable object, a brick flower planter. This summer, somebody from her own block brazenly busted into her house while she was home and took her purse, and that was pretty much the end of Lil’s days in the house. The family was worried about her, and she eventually (and reluctantly) recognized that she needed to be someplace where there were more services to help her.
She found a nice senior apartment. They had a staff that prepared meals for them and scheduled group times. It wasn’t a nursing home; she was still autonomous and didn’t need constant care. It seemed to me a lot like a college dorm, except of course everybody was older and there were no kegs. Still, it wasn’t the house she had lived in for 60 years. It was a big adjustment for her.
Last week we got a call that she had fainted and was in the hospital. She had pneumonia, but was generally strong enough to go back home. Then about four days later we got another call-she had fainted and was in the hospital again. This time, tests revealed that she had a faulty heart valve. That was probably why she had been feeling run down of late, but when you’re 93 you probably don’t automatically assume something is wrong when you’re tired. You assume that’s what it feels like to be 93.
One of her doctors told her if she didn’t have the valve fixed she probably wouldn’t live more than two years. Her reaction? “Well, that would make me 95. That’d be just fine.” She doesn’t want to go through the surgery, and who can blame her? I sure haven’t walked 93 years in her shoes.
We visited her Sunday in her new digs, a full-on nursing home with medical services. As those places go it seemed nice enough, but it’s not what she wants, obviously. What had been her concession, her senior apartment, now seems to be an unattainable best-case scenario because of the risks associated with her heart that seemingly aren’t going to go away.
The difficulties of her life as she gets older are taking a toll. She’s usually cheery and thoughtful, but it’s odd to see that demeanor coexist with her plain-spoken assessments of life at 93. She told us there are nights when she goes to bed that she wishes maybe she wouldn’t wake up in the morning. She didn’t say it in a way that inspired pity or made us think she was miserable; it was matter-of-fact, a realty of what it’s like for her some nights. She’s 93, most of her friends and relatives have passed on, and now she has to depend on others. Some nights it just doesn’t seem worth it, and there must always be the nagging fear that the next time she passes out she’ll come back, but without that spark that makes us all special. Why go through that when you’ve already raised a family, taught for over 40 years, and planted and harvested enough gardens to fill a supermarket many times over?
I talked to Linus about it last night while I was laying with him in bed. Our talks while we lay in the dark go everywhere; last night we just happened to talk about Great Grey Owls and Death. I asked him what he thought of her decision to not have the operation, even if it meant she might only live another two years. He said, “Well, two years is a long time!” And it is, when you’re 93. He understands that two years isn’t enough for me or him, of course, and he knows that 93 is pretty special. He asked me how old I would be if he was 93. I told him I would be 123 years old, and he said, “So, you’d be dead, then?” Oh, yeah. Extremely dead.
Sitting there with Lil Sunday, it was hard not to look at her, facing the end of her days with resignation and the satisfaction of having lived a full life, and contrast that with her great-granddaughter, her namesake, who has her whole life ahead of her. Many years down the road, long after I’m gone, I’d like for my Lillian to be able to face the great unknown of life with the kind of dignity her Little Grandma has shown.
But knowing Lil, she’ll probably continue to show that dignity for years to come, hopefully long enough for Lily to form her own lifelong memories of her amazing Little Grandma.
8:05:25 PM 
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