2 posts tagged “grandma”

Twenty-four hours after I wrote the post about my grandmother, she died peacefully, in her sleep.

When I was 19, I helped my grandmother clean out her house in preparation for a move.  She was angry.  My grandfather had sold their house without consulting her.  The house they had built in the 1950s, where they had lived since my mother was somewhere around 12 or 13.  I'm not sure of the year, and really, it doesn't matter.  They had lived there for a long time.  Grandma had just finished redecorating.  And Grandpa went and sold the house.

Mind you, they were just moving next door - so Grandma could look out the window and see her old house every day.  Yeah, that won't make a person bitter or anything.  But I digress.

Grandma was angry, but rather than admit to being angry, she found a thousand little ways to act out about it, all the while presenting a sweet and smiling demeanor.  Because the new house was smaller than the old house, Grandma's main passive aggressive tactic was to talk about all the things she wouldn't be able to keep, because there simply wasn't room for them.  She would smile sweetly and say "Well, it's alright, I don't need those old things anymore," and tell me to put the silver tea service or a crystal vase on the "for the yard sale" table. 

It wasn't alright.  She did need those old things.  Each one had a story about her, or someone she loved, and  from before I can remember, my Grandma told me all of those stories.  She told them again as we cleaned out her house getting ready for the yard sale and move.

It won't be long before it's time to clean out my grandmother's house again.  The cancer is assaulting her so viciously that over the last few weeks, she's gone from being quite physically capable to being unable to get out of bed.  The Alzheimer's has torn away all her stories.  And I was too shortsighted to write them down or record them.

I believe that once my grandmother dies, my grandfather will finally let go, too.  (My grandfather is another story, for another day.)  And then it will be up to my mother and me to clean out their house.  How much will we be able to remember, of all that will be left to us?