And they all sang

I stopped drinking at 24. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to.  It would be several years later before the desire to drink was completely lifted. I had always been a pleasure seeker, a comfort seeker, whether it was food, or booze or men or shopping. I liked to feel good. Only in sobriety did I discover the benefit of feeling shitty, of actually allowing myself to feel everything life has to offer.

The experience of watching my grandmother slip down the dark hole of Alzheimer's has been the essence of what getting sober is all about: being able to show up for other people when they need you, even if you don't always want to.  An alcoholic is a selfish creature, causing damage nearly everywhere they go. I remember a Saturday evening a lifetime ago when my then husband and sister in law and I took the train up to my mother's house for Mother's Day weekend. I showed up drunk and angry. Drunk because I had worked a brunch shift earlier in the day and drank my way through the entire eight hour shift. And angry because my husband and his sister accused me of being drunk.  We all went out to dinner that evening and everyone refused to order a bottle of wine. I was livid.  I do not recall the Mother's Day the year after that.

I am hoping my grandmother makes another Mother's Day. The nursing home has a nice outdoor area that would be a great place to have a picnic with the kids and her in the spring. I did not bring the kids with me today, it was just the two of us, the way it used to be, and it was one of the best visits we've had in awhile. We played gin rummy for half an hour AND SHE WON! Granted, I may not have played like my life depended on it, but we had fun. We snacked on rugelach  I'd brought and talked about my grandfather who passed away in 1991. When we were finished with cards she allowed me to take her upstairs where it said on the schedule that trivia was taking place. We were late but no one seemed to care. She was invited in and I pulled up a chair and listened as the residents played name that tune. It was beautiful to see these elderly people recognize the songs and begin to sing them. My grandma remembered a few and would shout out the title of the song. 'America the Beautiful' played and many of the residents sang loudly in unison. It gave me the chills and is something I won't soon forget. What a special visit.

It all goes by so quickly...

How is my oldest child eight years old? And how am I (much) closer to forty than thirty? I have been divorced far longer than I was married. In the past five years I have logged more time with regulars at my restaurants then I have with my extended family.

Life is not how I thought it would be, it's simply what it is.

I know that it is all going by far too quickly for my liking. When I had my first baby a man that I had once babysat for told me to enjoy it, he said the days go by so slowly and the years go by so quickly. At the time I had a very sick baby who barely slept and cried all day. I couldn't wait for these days to be over, I had no ability to savor the moment, I was exhausted and overwhelmed.

The next two years, adding another baby to the family, selling a house, opening a restaurant, moving twice.....did not encourage me to slow down and soak in the details of every day. Not to say I was unhappy, quite the opposite. But everything seemed like work, tasks I had to accomplish in order to keep the train on the tracks. I had gone from zero kids to two kids in 19 months, as well as becoming a business owner. It was a lot to take in.

And now what I wouldn't give to have one of my girls be a toddler again. Or go back eight years and have my grandmother back. As I was rocking Crosby to sleep last night I remembered a CPR certification pin I found in my grandma's jewelry box a few weeks ago. I was surprised to see it because I don't remember her ever talking about being certified. I wondered if she did it when my grandpa was very sick. And then I thought I should call her and ask......and then I remembered. It made me hold my breath for a second, the realization that I can't just pick up the phone and call her. It's what I've said about Alzheimer's many times before on this blog, that it is a slow death for the family where you lose the person you love little by little.

One of my friends lost her sister this week, suddenly, with very little warning. It is a reminder to me how fragile life is and how deeply loss is felt when a loved one is gone.

Rest in Peace Paige Thomas.

Christmas Eve forgotten

I close my eyes and remember everything. Turning sixteen and nineteen and twenty-three. My first job and my first apartment on East 22nd street and who broke my heart and all of my friends I laughed and cried with and all of the days and nights and years before today. And I open my eyes and I am 33, the same age my father was when he died with the same number of children he had.  

All of these things, my memories, are an intangible part of me. And I think about my rapidly disappearing grandmother and wonder what she still remembers. I wonder what her mind is like. I imagine it to be dark hallways that lead to even darker rooms, walking slowly around a house but never finding the door to the room you wish to enter. She is forgetting more and more it seems. The dots have almost completely stopped connecting.

I think one of the more difficult aspects of Alzheimer's is the reality that it doesn't get better. Not the point that she is at. No amount of medication or good diet or exercise or yoga (as if she'd ever do that!) will improve her current state. I am sadly aware that my visits are forgotten shortly after I leave. I brought two of my children and my mother to see her on Christmas Eve. She opened the gifts we brought and ate Christmas cookies and spoke to my brother on the phone for his birthday and yet none of it clicked for her. There was no recognition of it being Christmas. 

Two days later my uncle visited and mentioned my visit on Christmas eve. She was adamant that no one had been to see her. I felt sad and also thankful that my kids had gotten another visit with her while she still knows who we are, even if she later forgets, they will remember.

The memory keeper

Last night was one of those nights that I couldn't talk without crying. I'm up visiting my mom and got to see my grandma for the first time in a few weeks, since I'd been sick with the flu for nearly two weeks. When I arrived at the nursing home bingo was going on in the dining room, so I went to my grandma's room to see if she might like to join in. To my surprise she said yes. So I wheeled her down and we grabbed a table and started to play. Ten minutes later my grandma glances over at my card and whispers," you have bingo!"  I said, " I know, but I think it's better to let someone else win." She squinted her eyes at me and pursed her lips and I expected her to fight me on it, then her face softened and she just shrugged her shoulders and said okay. Two minutes later a tiny old lady at the next table chirped 'Bingo!' I looked over at my grandma and smiled and she smiled back.

After bingo was over I went to her room and got a pack of cards and we proceeded to play gin rummy for an hour. There were moments that I felt myself getting choked up and I had to swallow hard and push it down. My entire life my grandmother and I have played cards. Sitting there with her at the table reminded me of so many afternoons of my childhood, sitting at her kitchen table, a little bowl of oyster crackers and glasses of iced tea within reach.

I got back to my mom's house in time for dinner and explained in detail to her my visit. She understands like no one else the emotional roller coaster this entire journey with my grandmother has been. After getting the kids bathed and tucked in we sat downstairs and discussed plans for the holidays. And laughed. A lot. We went upstairs and I went into my room and noticed my grandma's jewelry box on the dresser. I set it on the bed and lifted the lid and knew immediately this was gonna be tough. It was like little pieces of her life were in this box. A garnet ring, a pin from the telephone company she worked at, a charm from Hawaii, her highschool graduation pin from 1942. My mom came in the room and sat down on the bed with me and we began to look at stuff together. And I had the deep, heart breaking cry I had been avoiding for so long but desperately needed.

Today I will drive back to Brooklyn and take her jewelry box with me. I know that most of what's in there will never be worn by me, but I feel it's my job to keep it all. The rosary beads, the plethora of ugly gold hoop earrings and even the Mass card from a friend that passed away in 1994.  I will keep her memories for her, long after she has forgotten them all.

Goodbye Lou

I was just reading about Laurie Anderson's experience being there as Lou Reed died. His final moments. Holding him as his heart stopped beating, and how proud she felt and how full of wonder he looked. It sounds absolutely beautiful. I wonder if that is what it will really be like?

My mother and I talk a few times a day. Everyday. We have for my entire life. Recently I have begun to feel a little anxious if I see her call at an unexpected time. I think she will be delivering bad news. And bad news not just being that my grandmother has died. There are degrees of bad news. I am waiting for the day to come when I go to visit and she no longer recognizes me. For now things seem to have stabilized health wise. She is safe and miserable. That's it.

But as always, I am trying to find the good in all of this, and that is my mother. She has been amazing. She has spent countless hours, many more than me, at doctor's offices and rehab centers and social security offices and on the phone with banks and government agencies. I am so very proud of her. She has taught me how to be a good mother and a good daughter.  I know that there is no escaping it, that one day my mother will die. It terrifies me to imagine the day that I will wake up and not have her to call. I will be lost without her. I love you mama.

The Queen of Packing

My grandmother was an amazing packer. You'd think she was raised on a boat with a tiny bed suspended from the ceiling and a kitchen table that doubled as guest quarters. She did not. She grew up in a house in Washingtonville, New York with seven siblings. Perhaps being one of eight made her feel space was valuable. Or being raised during the Great Depression, the feeling that nothing should be wasted, not even space in a suitcase.

She taught me to roll up my socks and underwear and put them in my shoes, and the shoes went in a plastic bag, probably a clear produce bag she had saved from the grocery store. She always seemed to find extra space that I didn't imagine existed.  This was true for packing a car as well. She could neatly and efficiently pack a trunk like no one else.

The person she is today is so different than the woman she once was. I guess I keep writing about it because I still have a hard time accepting that the woman I've loved all these years is slowly dying in a nursing home tonight. I will keep writing about it, because I want to honor who she was while still loving who she is now.

All cleaned out

It's in the little actions that I feel her void the most. Things I do without thinking when my body is on auto pilot and my mind wanders to her. Washing my kids hair, doing the dishes, making an apple pie. Things my hands have done a hundred times and I imagine her doing these things in the past, washing her kids hair, making me pie, doing the dishes while my grandpa stood next to her drying each one. And then I wonder what she is doing now and the sadness creeps in.

Her apartment is now cleaned out. Completely empty, like it looked a year ago when I moved her in there. All of her furniture has been given away. Her bedroom set I've known my whole life was broken up, night tables to one person, bed frame and dressers to another. Not the way she would have wanted it, but the way it had to be. I requested her cedar trunk and her wooden step stool for the beach house. I don't need these items, but I need to have a tangible object that was hers for when she is gone.

I was concerned about how she would feel about staying in the nursing home for Thanksgiving, but it seems my concerns were unnecessary. She hasn't mentioned it. I haven't seen her in over two weeks because I've been sick, but my mom keeps me posted on her daily moods and how she's feeling. She seems to vacillate between cranky, tired, disinterested, childlike and sad. I will be up to see her next weekend and I'm looking forward to it. I'm acutely aware that each time I go could be the last time she recognizes me, so I'm going to try and make the most out of each visit.