We Drank A Toast To Time...

Today would have been my grandmother's 108th birthday. I thought about her a lot this morning, Dan Fogelberg's "Same Old Lang Syne" running through my head.

My grandmother was born in 1900 in a small town in the midwest, the youngest of seven children. Her father was French by descent and a farmer as well as a tintyper. His father had died years before from milk sickness, otherwise known as tremetol poisoning - their cows had eaten some white snakeroot. The entire family had grown ill from the milk and because of that, her father never drank milk again as long as he lived. Her mother was of Irish descent and was a Quaker, a decision influenced by a Quaker family whose home she had worked in as a housemaid.

Her parents met during a local fair along the Wabash River in 1885 when her dad stopped her mother to ask if she'd like her picture taken. They married in 1886.

After having three children -- and losing three, one at the age of 2 from an accidental fall into the fireplace and another two at birth -- my grandmother was born when her mother was 40. She was less than two pounds at birth and she told me her father could cradle her in the palm of her hand. He took a shoe box, placed it in the pulled out bottom drawer of a nightstand and moved it near the fire. That was her crib. They didn't expect her to live through the night.

But she lived, all right. She died four months before her 102nd birthday.

Oh, but she lived! Her brother fought in WW1. She rode a horse to school and only attended until the 6th grade. She took a cross country trip in a Model T around 1919 and worked in a shoe factory in the 1920's. She saw both World Wars, the Great Depression, Korea, Vietnam, and the development of aircraft, automobiles, television, cameras, radio, telephones, spacecraft, and computers. That in itself is simply incredible. Would that my life be as far-reaching in scope.

She met my grandfather at 27 but they didn't marry until she was 34. My grandfather's mother had died when he was 12 from influenza so he was the sole provider for his aged grandmother and great-aunt during the Depression and he worked as a mechanic to take care of his womenfolks. After the Depression was over they continued to date. My grandmother waited patiently for him to decide, as was her manner. She was a firm believer in the power of patience. After a few more years had gone by -- six of them! -- though, her patience had run its course. In her no-nonsense manner she told my grandfather, "I've given you leave to decide whether we're to marry. I'm getting no younger and I have waited long enough. If we aren't to marry, I will leave."

They married a few months later.

She lived her life like this. Patience, caring, love, acceptance. She allowed my grandfather to run the family and rarely made the "waves" that modern women make, angsting about decisions and feelings and rights. She didn't consider her choices a sacrifice and she didn't believe that she'd given up any of her own power by allowing these things. My grandfather listened to her counsel, believed in her, leaned on her and was devoted to her. She knew that while my grandfather was the rock of the family, she was the root. She was calm like the port in the storm. She rarely put her foot down with him but when she did, he invariably acceeded to her wishes. They were married 55 years.

I didn't really get to know her until she was in her 70s since I wasn't born until she was in her late 60's. We grew very close after my grandfather died and my love for her was the kind of love that I hold for no one else in the world, save my child. Nothing could shake her; she'd seen and lived through much and there wasn't much about life that surprised her. She told me at her 100th birthday that she thought they should legalize marijuana! She was 4'10" but in her small package she managed to meld pragmatism and childish innocence; a curiosity and appreciation for the wondrousness of living that I don't see often enough. She taught me so very many things.

The last few years of her life were a little rough. She suffered a number of mini-strokes over the last decade of her life and finally a few months shy of her 101st birthday one stroke was bad enough to render her incapacitated and she moved from my parent's home into a nursing facility. Though we were told that her brain had been damaged by the stroke, I wonder sometimes if she was aware enough to know -- in some distant sort of way -- what was happening to her. She'd told me many times over many years that she was ready to die when it came her time and though I understood why she said it, my gut always clenched when she would. She lived this way for about a year before finally succumbing to another massive stroke. It was a blessing and through my grief I knew that she was relieved to have it over and done with.

There are precious few people on this earth that I miss profoundly after they're gone. I don't believe that people persist after death but there is a part of me that wishes that they would, and even hopes that they do. I can see why many religious sorts find an odd sense of comfort in the thought. I thought about my grandmother today and wished with all my heart that I could see her again, if for no other reason than to apologize for my behavior in the face of her decline and death.

When she went into the nursing home I rarely visited her. It reeked of death and decay. It wasn't the reek of her bodily functions so much as the reek of what was inside her, killing her. Her breath smelled dark and rank, like death was her passenger and only her autonomic system and our efforts to sustain her were keeping her fixed here. She had a DNR so she wasn't on machines but she was fed through a feeding tube. Bu none of that would have mattered to me had SHE been there....the light in her eye, I mean. The glint of life still being lived underneath it all. I would have visited much more than I did. As it was, I felt uncomfortable and sad and petty that the glint mattered to me. She looked tired and miserable and I didn't want to be there as witness to her loss of dignity or remember her in that way. So I stayed away. I wish now that I hadn't.

I hope -- if she did know that I didn't come -- I hope that she forgave me. I hope that she understood the whys of it. I'm driving the two hours to her grave tonight. I can visit her in the peace of death. I hope if by some crazy way she's there now, she can see me again.

I love you, grandma. Sleep well.

((Song: "Same Old Lang Syne" by Dan Fogelberg. Lyrics here:
http://www.afn.org/~afn30091/songs/f/fogelberg-same.htm ))