2005, Oklahoma

By Raen Chappell

I hold her arm, steadying her as we pace the room. Her small slippers, housing feet the same size as mine, shuffle against the cold floor, blurs of pink against white tiles. As we near the window, her momentum continues forward. I gently shift my weight, coaxing her dreary body to pivot. At first she resists. She finally turns in time, her foot nearly hitting the wall.

We continue to pace; I walk while she shuffles. We near the next wall and I again try to shift her. But she has at least a 30-pound advantage. She mumbles as her foot meets the wall; confused, she pauses.

“Come on, lovey. Turn just a little bit,” I whisper in her ear. She absentmindedly pats my arm as she shifts. I know she hears my voice and is guided, comforted even, by the musical tones. But she doesn’t understand what I say.

Another trip around the room, each step a struggle. Her body fights mine, attempting to follow the straight lines her mind has concocted. If I leave her alone, she will stumble in circles.

A knock at the door precedes the entry of the doctor and my mother. Her eyes flash - is it recognition? - as she sees her daughter enter the room. I help her to the bed. Out of the corner of my eye I see the handkerchief in my mother’s hand. It is covered with black smears.

The doctor coos over my grandmother as my mother slides dollar bills in my hand. She pats me on the shoulder as I slip out of the room.

I stand in front of the vending machine, deciding whether she prefers caffeinated or non-caffeinated, regular or diet. I opt for two lemon-lime sodas and a diet cola. There’s a free chair in the waiting room. I open the diet cola and sip, waiting with everyone else.

My phone chirps. Everyone stares at me, their eyes hating me, hating the situation they are in, hating that loved ones are so sick. I glance at the caller ID as I open it; my mother’s cheerful voice asks if I will come back into the room.

I know this is difficult for her. And she’s all alone. I don’t know where her sisters are; the older sister is probably taking care of grandpa, or maybe her younger sister is. I wonder if they all feel so deeply about this hospital stay. I hand her the lemon-lime soda when I enter the room. She leans down, her tall frame stooping to kiss my cheek. Then she’s out of the room again.

“Hello pretty lady!” I say as I pour the remaining can of soda into a cup. I place the long straw at her lips. Grandma swats it away as she lies in the hospital bed, her fingers and arms moving in unsteady circles.

“Paper,” she whispers. I move the bed table over her lap, place a pen in her hand and help her to bring the arm down to the paper. She starts writing, her face relaxing in peace.

We have a connection, she and I. We are the short ones in a family of giants. We are the writers, the chroniclers of our family and other life mysteries. We are the musicians. I think if we were the same age we would be kindred spirits.

I glance at what she’s writing. I bite my lip as I realize her “words” are mere scribbles. She looks up at me. Her brow furrows as she begins to explain.

“See, darling, my grandfather was a … a … builder,” she haltingly reads. Her eyes grow frantic - I think she knows that there are no real words on the page. She searches for a word. She is talking in circles now.

I move the table away, grab a book from my mother’s bag, and sit next to the bed.

“Grandma, can I read you a story?” I ask her. They think it helps. It’s a children’s story, something about a Christmas angel. I speak slowly, my voice enticing her to concentrate and follow the plot.

Before I’m finished with the first page, she begins a narrative again. Her voice builds, distressed with excitement.

I’m not sure what she’s saying.

The rest of my visit continues like this. My mother talks with the doctors and nurses, documenting their statements, the medications they suggest. I try to capture grandma’s attention, her focus. But I think she’s lost it somewhere between the dreams of the past and the fears of the future.

At some point, my mother leaves her notes in the room to take a brief break. I glance at her structured writing. Bi–polar disorder. Psychotic episodes.

I move away before I hear her re-enter the room. Her eyes are watery. I hug her as we both stand at the foot of the hospital bed, staring at the woman we love so much.

They don’t understand her, I think to myself. All the interactions I’ve seen take place between her and her spouse and her offspring. I can’t think of a time when anyone - other than a polite stranger or new friend - actually listened to her words. She is usually cut off, her words refused by those she loves. A tear forms in my eye.

I’m not the best at listening to her either. I pride myself on my compassionate dedication to her words, to following her trailing and disconnected narrative. But as I’ve aged, I’ve allowed the familial frustration to invade my perception of her. Instead of sympathizing with her whenever grandfather yells at her to be quiet, I applaud his verbal rebuke.

So I wasn’t attentive to what she tried to tell me. If I had been truly listening these past few months, I would have heard her pleading for help. But instead I dismissed her, just like everyone else.

Momma kisses my cheek and tells me to get back to my studies. The doctor has left anyways, she rationalizes. I gather my bag laden with college textbooks and my coat. I stop to say goodbye to the glorious woman lying in the bed. As I bend over, she grabs my face, tenderly holding it inches from her own.

I look into her blue eyes, the same ones that stare back at me each morning in the mirror. She mumbles something, then a quiet tear, almost imperceptible, glides down her weathered cheek. I kiss her lips and tell her I’ll be back soon.

A week or two later, my mother explains the conditions of the disease. Most of what she tells me I already know. My late night study sessions had resorted to research as I studied the disease and its effects. I identify the “quirky traits” of my grandmother as evidences of either mania or depression.

I also recognize subtle symptoms in my own behavior.

My mother berates herself for not noticing the decline of grandma’s health. I pat her arm and remind her we couldn’t have seen this coming.

She looks at me and I instantly know what she’s feeling. What she’s felt since she walked into her parents’ house a month ago and saw her mother walking into walls. What she’s felt since she was a child.

She thinks it’s her fault.

Years ago, when she was only four, something terrible happened. She doesn’t know what it was, she only knows what she’s been told. Although at home with her mother and baby sister all day, she remembers nothing of the incident.

Her older sister found them that afternoon after school. The children were terrified. My grandmother was conversing with birds. Something else must have happened, but no one will say what it was.

They treated her for a nervous breakdown, words that have subsequently only been whispered among us grandchildren. Electro-shock therapy, anti-psychotic medication, separation from her family - grotesque treatments made her scared of doctors, of white lab coats.

Then suddenly she was fine. She was returned to the family and all was well. No one mentions that she would lock her children out of the house during summer days, allowing them back in only at dark. No one mentions that she withdrew to her bedroom rather than interact with her family. No one mentions that she cradled her dogs more than she did her grandchildren.

They just laugh. At the triplicate layers of plastic in which she wraps everything. At the novel-length letters she mails, often to someone other than it’s addressed. At her habit of stashing and hiding things throughout the house, a birth certificate in this magazine, $100 in that one.

They laugh at her disconnect and skirt any issue of instability.

Mother dries her tears. “The cancer medications reacted with her chemical and hormonal levels, which are out of balance due to the … the illness,” she whispers. She pats my shoulder as she clears her throat. “But they’ve adjusted her medication, even added some new ones to help control her behavior. Grandma’s been having these difficulties for a long time now…,” her voice trails off.

We move her to a rehabilitation center, fancy words for a nursing home. My aunts and my mother rotate the position of WatchGuard. I bring her CDs of Josh Groban. The music calms her spirit.

We pretend that nothing is wrong. At my brother and sister-in-law’s graduation from law school we all smile and take pictures. No one mentions her name. On my 21st birthday we celebrate in the “family room” at the center. She laughs as I enter the room; we are both in pink slippers. Mine are heeled, hers are cushioned. She pats my cheek as I kiss her hello.

They soon release her to our care. She shuffles - in straight lines - around her house. Over the next year I receive letters addressed only to me. She listens as well as talks, everything coherent and timely.

She rambles occasionally, but I think it has become part of her charm. She often calls me just to tell me something. It generally makes me cry - it’s generally a low day for me. Somehow she always knows.

I brought her my poetry last summer. She understood it without asking me a question, instead dialoguing with it to me, giving brief hints to clarify my intention, suggesting a better word here and there. In my family, she’s the only one who understands without explanation.

She also understands when my mood shifts, and I suddenly grow angry with my loved ones. She pats my hand and silently encourages me to calm down. She loves to tell me how much she loves me.

The only house slippers I wear are pink. To match those of my kindred spirit.

Raen Chappell is a freelance writer who focuses on prose and poetry with emotional meaning. She is using a pseudonym.

Posted by Elizabeth Armstrong Moore on Tuesday, May 1st, 2007 | Email This Post

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