A kid's perspective

"November 17, 2001:  Mitch and Anna here for supper and the evening.  We watched TV and played Rummikub.
November 19, 2001:  Rearranged some of the cupboards.  Still a lot more to do.  Nancy came with a card for Bill.  We got ours ready and she'll mail them tomorrow.
November 20, 2001:  Bill is 62 years old today.  Mary took me to beauty school at noon for shampoo, etc.  Nancy came in evening so I could shower -- then we played Rummikub."

Pretty normal stuff here.  I remember Grandma babysitting for the kids for me, but I did not remember at all that it started so soon after she moved to Lincoln.  (I hope that doesn't make me a bad, opportunistic grand-daughter.)  I am pretty sure she didn't mind and it was certainly great for the kids to be able to spend time one-on-one with her.  Not that they always wanted to -- see a paper Mitch wrote in November of 2004, a year to the month before Grandma died and before she was diagnosed. 

The Card Game

One way that I have grown up or looked at a person differently involves me and my great-grandma, Marian.  Let me start off by telling you a little about my grandmother.  She is 92 years old and her will to fight is too strong to describe.  Her husband died almost four years ago on Christmas Eve.  It was hard for everyone but especially for Grandma, so she soon decided to move to Lincoln closer to family.  So whenever the family had nothing to do in the evenings we went over to her house to play cards.  It turned into a weekly routine and we all went over to play cards.  I found I was quickly getting bored and I started not wanting to go.

That was one year ago and I used to avoid going to her house but once I said no, I don't really want to, a thick haze of guilt covered me like a felt blanket.  But we still went occasionally and I still didn't want to go until my mother asked me one day why I didn't want to go and I said that I just didn't want to.  She gave me a crooked look and left.  The same question and following look arrived more and more until she did not accept my usual answer, "I just don't want to go".  She insisted one day that I give her another answer and I told her that I just got really bored sitting there and playing cards.  She stood there for a few seconds and told me that I needed to understand that her husband died, she had to move from the house she lived in almost her whole life, and the fact that she lives alone.  No one here in the family can truly relate to the situation she is in.  Then came that same haze of guilt, only this time the blanket was folded over and it was much heavier.

She has lived near us three years now and I look at my grandmother in ways that I have never looked at her before.  If she can live through all the stuff she has so far, I'm guessing that she could take on the world with one eye shut and one arm tied behind her back.  I now understand what she has gone through and whenever she has a card game scheduled I will always be there if I can make it.  That is how I came to change my view of my grandmother from being bored to being loving and supporting.

There are a few technical errors here; the date Grandpa died and the "whenever the family had nothing to do".....we did go just to go, not just as a last resort.  But, all in all, he did pretty good with this.  Oh, and on his "I don't want to go" instances, we went anyway -- he did not get to call the shots.  I may have let him stay home a few times, but that would have been it.

The photo is of everyone mentioned in this post except Bill and myself.  Look at those flowers!