Grandma's Memories

My grandmother is weak now. She sits fragile in her hospital chair while her hands shake from undiagnosed Parkinson’s.  Her shrunken, wrinkled frame is curled up with her blank face drooping.  Her cornflower blue eyes are glazed over and partially obscured by cataracts. Her short white bob, once so polished, now lies limp as she goes bald.  There’s a spot of skin cancer on her nose, but there is no use in removing it now.  She will die soon, if not from the cancer, from her Alzheimer’s disease.  I’ve watched it slowly take her memory and now her physical ability for nearly as long as I have known her.

It wasn’t always like this though.  I remember when she was more vibrant than most people 20 years younger than her. A beautiful piano teacher who was quick as a whip and light on her feet.  She went on a walk every day and played tennis almost as frequently.  The moment you stepped into her house the scent of her freshly baked, gooey pound cake overwhelmed you, and she had a plate of the creamiest fudge you could imagine in her hand as she met you at the door.  Grandma had a love for peace and quiet that I knew to be uncompromising.  She saved all kinds of games from her kids’ childhoods for me, my sisters and our cousins: puzzles, Legos, kitchen sets, dollhouses.  But puzzles were her favorite.  She always had a 1000 piece jigsaw on the table in her dining room, but the kids were to work on a separate one in the living room. But if you were playing games, you must play them on the other side of the house, and you must play them very quietly.  No popping vacuum cleaner and no shoemaking set and absolutely no bickering between me and my sisters.  She had raised her children this way, and planned to treat us just the same while under her supervision.  She never owned a computer and still hung her clothes one a clothesline to dry.  She was old-fashioned but fair, and we loved her very dearly.

My first memory with her is from when I was about 3.  She lined me and my sister up and told us she had a surprise for us.  I stood there quietly, almost dumbly, but Gretchen, aged 5 at the time was eager to discover her prize. 

“I wanna know what it is- lemme see!” Gretchen snuck a peek around to catch a glimpse of something black behind my grandma’s back.

Grandma twisted away and crossed her arms tighter behind her trim 100 pound figure.  “No peeking or you won’t get anything at all!”

“I wanna pick first! This hand!”  She grabs at Grandma’s left arm and Grandma reveals an oversize stuffed beanie-baby cat.  It’s about a foot tall, black with white mittens, and has little green beads for eyes.  “I’m gonna name him Zip!” She takes him in and squeezes him to her chest, beaming.

“Okay, Connie, here is yours.” She pulls out a tabby orange cat to match and holds her out to me.  I take it and start babbling about “cat says meow.”

My parents laugh from the kitchen table behind Grandma.  “What do you say, girls?”

“Thank you,” we chorus back in the practiced way we always did.

“You’re welcome girls.”

“Connie, what are you gonna name yours? Mine’s name is Zip.”

I looked at her and told her that I didn’t know, it didn’t have a name yet.

“It hasta have a name.  All stuffed animals have names.”

“Calm down, Gretchen. Here Connie, let me see the kitty.”  Grandma looks at the trademark beanie baby tag and bends down to announce to me. “Her name is Amber.”  She turns to Gretchen and bends down again.  “Her name is Amber, Gretchen.”

“Okay. Why Amber?”

“Well, it’s because she has stripes that are the color Amber.  That is this orange-y brown.” Grandma patiently answers her.