I went to see my family last Sunday. It was a nice visit and conversation centered around getting to see everyone more than discussion of what I've been doing, which was nice. My cousin's son played with a set of Fisher-Price golfballs and clubs and asked politely for iced tea and a second cookie. We played Santa animals while the grown-ups talked a bit and he quite enjoyed it.
It was like being in another dimension, walking into the same living room, same kitchen, same den, and same bathroom that I remember from my childhood. What's weird is that I'm pretty sure things haven't changed since my dad was a boy too--the wastepaper baskets in rooms are emptied hourly, dishes don't pile up, and Papa sits in his armchair watching TV on maximum volume. It's like stepping back in time entering their house, and the only change I recognize is that the old tree in the backyard was removed a couple years back.
Then there's my grandparents. 84 and 94 years old, they're getting on in their years, and during my visit I kept it in the back of my head that I might not get to see them again when I visit next year. It was disconcerting, but the strangest thing was seeing how much they've changed since I last saw them. My grandmother has always been a harsh, bitter woman, and she would often take out her anger on her husband, who sits back and takes the abuse, keeping his hearing aids turned down so he can't hear any of it. Due to his poor hearing, Papa would always sit in his armchair and watch family reunions and visits, sometimes asking loudly how someone is doing or question who a specific person was (his grandchildren have all grown up and now we're onto great-grandchildren). But this visit was entirely different. Perhaps because everyone was at the house, or perhaps because she's getting older, Grandma was far more subdued than I've ever seen her. There was very little snark, and when she spoke to me about her health and stress surrounding caring for Papa, she sounded tired and beaten. It's almost scary to see such a change in a person, even a somewhat welcome one. Papa, on the other hand, hardly spoke at all during the visit. His hair is almost gone, and he looks older than he ever has before. For the first time, when I hugged him goodbye, he did not squeeze back when I took his hand.
Everyone else is aging too, and my cousin mentioned that her 40th birthday is looming out there on the horizon. Walking through the house and looking at all the pictures, those of my siblings and me have been largely overshadowed by pictures of the great-grandchildren, my second-cousins, one of whom I've not yet met.
My father moved to Colorado from Los Angeles in the late 80's, then eventually to North Carolina after I was born. I've always believed that part of his reason for leaving home was his overbearing mother. He lived at home through college, and has told me many stories surrounding his mother's inability to accept things that are new to her, like eating fish. Even her children's significant others were subject to scrutiny--it's like that old philosophy that everything should stay in the family and outsiders are not to be trusted. My dad told me that he didn't want to see his kids treated like his sister's children, who learned to manipulate Grandma in order to get what they want and visited her frequently despite her harsh disposition. The decision may have cost him his relationship with his mother, who now holds a grudge over the fact that he doesn't call or send letters often enough (she hangs up if he calls and has sent back letters and cards). It's quite a dysfunctional situation.
When my maternal grandparents passed away, I felt sad that I'd never forged a relationship with either of them. I spent the next couple years that I lived in LA hearing about how wonderful a person my Grandma was, but I feel so young--I don't remember much at all, besides the basics that a grandchild remembers. I remember her generosity at Christmas and how much she loved Santa Fe and southwestern jewelry, I remember her difficult relationship with her husband and how sad it was to see her fade away in the years after she was diagnosed with cancer. I remember that I never got to know her as a person. She passed away the first semester that I was in school in Los Angeles, and had been very sick leading up to it. I didn't know her, and as a stupid kid, I had never seen the importance of trying to get to know her. I regret that immensely now. I hear so much from my mother, my aunt, and other relatives about how giving and wonderful a person she was, how she coped with her husband and how she raised five children as a navy wife, moving every couple years. I learned that she'd wanted a white Persian cat, and my aunt had wanted nothing more than for her mother to be able to have what she wanted. But Grandpa outlived her, and I did get to see him decline. We were never close, but he visited me at school occasionally, and I would go to San Bernadino a couple times to see him. He was a talker, couldn't take a drive without him explaining the history of the area and what used to be in a certain location. We went to an art gallery once in my college town and he spent thirty minutes chatting with a salesman while I stood staring at a boring piece of art. He struggled to take care of himself, buying all his food and produce at the 99 cent store, which sells items close to their expiration dates. We would find food in the fridge that had expired years ago and have to throw it out when he wasn't around.
I feel like I've been rambling and not going anywhere with this.
My aunt likes to say that it's strange to think that you only know your grandparents when they're old. As you grow older, so do they, and so for the self-centered child (as most of us were), it can be difficult to ever see grandparents as different than they currently are. It's true, I only ever knew my grandparents (or remembered knowing them) when they had started to age. I don't recall Papa without hearing aids and participating in everyday conversation just as I don't remember my (maternal) grandmother being able to keep up easily on our trips to amusement parks and zoos. My (maternal) grandfather and (paternal) grandmother have always been angry people in my memory, but they mellowed with age.
Sometimes I really wish that I'd lived closer and could have known both sets of grandparents better than I did. But when I look back at who I was at 15/16, when I would most likely have had the forethought to try to get to know them as people...I know that I wouldn't have done it. Hell, most teenagers don't even get to know their parents as people.
I'm glad at least that I'll have a chance next month to get to know my parents as people, no matter where I end up afterwards.
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