Mimi was already old when I was born. Seventy-five. In 1967, that was really old. My memories of Mimi are fuzzy, mostly, like a pleasant dream of a familiar place. Some memories are sharp, though, and I can reach out and touch them as if they were yesterday...
As a little girl, I had two grandmas. My mom’s mom was a “regular” grandmother who cooked green beans on the stove all day and made fried chicken and potato soup. My other grandma, my dad’s mother, was exotic. She was from France and had an accent and always wore her hair in a bun. This grandma made delicious lemon pound cake with powdered sugar sprinkled on the top (how I wish I had the recipe) and had Jordan almonds in a drawer. She could knit and sew and speak several languages. In my memories, she wears a pale cotton dress and a soft grey sweater and sensible shoes.
Mimi’s house didn’t have many toys. I remember a few marbles, some dominoes, and crayons in the secretary, but not much else. That was never a problem, though, because she had a piano with a wonderful bench carved like an elephant. She never seemed to mind if we “played” it while we were there. I imagine she had a great love of music and didn’t mind if her granddaughters tried their fingers at the keyboard.
Mimi’s kitchen was a wonder to me. It was so different from our kitchen at home. The sink was all porcelain, and there were two really big sinks and a really cool built in drain on the side. I thought the breakfast room was really neat, especially because the refrigerator was in there and not in the main kitchen. But the thing I remember most about Mimi’s kitchen was sitting in that breakfast room at the little table eating graham crackers and milk. They were a staple at her house. Mimi always had graham crackers.
Once, when I was about eight years old, she came to stay with us, but I don’t remember why. I sat next to her on the couch one afternoon and helped her organize my mom’s sewing box. My own mother didn’t sew anything except buttons and the occasional hem, and her box of threads and pins was a rat’s nest of colors tangled together. Mimi and I untangled those threads and carefully wound them around playing cards that had been cut into small strips. The pins we collected into a small, round candy tin. The needles we placed into a square of felt we found in the bottom of the box. When we were finished, all the spools of thread were neatly organized by color in rows and the pins and needles were safely secured in their place in one of the trays. I was so proud of that sewing box! I can remember reorganizing the box several times after Mimi left, but it was never as nice as when we did it together.
Mimi gave me a book, Je Lis, Tu Lis, when she was staying with us. She would sit with me and teach me the correct pronunciation of colors and numbers. I can hear her voice saying, “Bleu, gris, marron…” I would try to produce those same sounds, but with my Kentucky accent, I doubt if I even came close!
Mimi was the reason I decided to study French in high school. Unfortunately, by the time I was a teenager, she was no longer well enough to converse with me. The winter of my freshman year, I learned a French Christmas carol. We went as a family to visit Mimi in the nursing home one December Sunday, and I sang it to her. I swear she smiled and tried to sing along as I sang, “Il est nee, le divine enfant…”
I always felt like I was cheated when it came to Mimi because by the time I was old enough to ask her questions about her life in France and have her teach me what she knew, she was too sick. I wish now she could have taught me how to knit or crochet or how to make lemon pound cake. I would have asked her what it was like to leave her home and journey to America. I would have loved to have conversed with her in French and heard stories of her childhood in Reims.
In my mind, I see her, standing in the doorway of 1909 Dorothy Avenue in her soft grey sweater, her hair in a bun, waving and smiling as we drive away. How I wish I had more…
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
To move or not to move
Tell me I'm not being selfish. Tell me that it is the right thing for Dad to move. Tell me that I want him to leave his house of 42 years because it's better and safer for him and not just because it's easier and more convenient for me.
We've been begging Dad to move for months, years even. After Mom died, and he was out there in that house by himself, we wanted him closer to us. With Colleen and I living 5 minutes apart, and Jennifer closer to us than to Dad, we just thought we could see him more and do more with him if he lived nearby.
We had many false starts. We looked about 3 years ago at patio homes right down the street from me. They were nice. He knew my mom's cousin who lived there. But the cost was more than he wanted to pay, he said. He wasn't ready. So he didn't move.
Then the bottom fell out of the housing market, and the stock market took a dive, and GM went bankrupt. Dad lost tens of thousands of dollars in equity in his house along with all of his GM stock. He was not going to move with that hanging over his head.
But it was a buyer's market, we said. It's a great time to purchase. You can get a nice place for a song. So we looked. He seemed interested in some other patio homes, but again, they were too much or too big or too small. Back to square one.
So all this time, Dad was dealing with his Parkinson's. He was slow, but he was steady. He was able to do stairs fairly well. He could get up and down out of his chair with ease. He could take his medicine without help. He could drive and take his garbage out and change his sheets and trim his toenails. His moving, then, would have been for us, so that he could be around us more. We worried about him being lonely. Living 30 minutes away made it difficult for him to be with us or for us to be with him as frequently as we would have liked. So he stayed put.
Then a year and a half ago, the health problems kicked in with a vengeance. He had a heart cathetarization done. Eye surgery to lift his lids so they would close. He started taking blood thinner. He began falling every once in awhile. His gait became slower. He had an endoscopy done and they found ulcers in his stomach. He stopped taking blood thinner. He got a pacemaker. His blood pressure went too low, and he began to get light headed when he stood. When they tried to fix it, his pressure went too high. He began seeing things...a black cat in the family room, a dog in the hall, people in the yard who weren't there. He began to have trouble seeing. He couldn't keep track of which medicine to take when. He choked on food. He froze in the driveway and ended up in the hospital for 3 days while his vitals were stabilized.
We found a new doctor who had him go through physical therapy, take a driving test, change medication. Things leveled out for awhile, but we had begun to worry not just about him being lonely, but about him being alone at all. People questioned his driving. We signed him up for free public transportation but he wouldn't take it. The visiting nurse who came after his hospitalization suggested he move. We suggested assisted living. His doctor recommended it. So did his sister and his nephew. Still, he resisted.
He continued to fall. He continued to freeze. He continued to drive. We continued to worry. We got him to look at moving again. At one condo complex, the seller's realtor asked who was looking at the property. We told her Dad was. She raised her eyebrows into her hairline and said, "You need to be looking at assisted living, not condos." We stopped looking at condos.
The doctor saw him in the fall. He told him he should really consider a different living situation. We went to talk to the social worker there. Dad's brother came along. They all pushed assisted living. Dad agreed it might be a good idea. We made an appointment with an elder law attorney and got his papers in order. (His will, un-notarized, was signed in 1972 by two people who are now deceased.) The lawyers strongly suggested assisted living. They even looked at his assets and showed him how he could afford it. He finally agreed to look. So we made an appointment and went last Wednesday.
It was a nice place. There were many people engaged in all kinds of activities. The apartments were very nice. They were fairly roomy. They had full kitchens. They had nice balconies. Three squares a day were included in the fee along with transportation to the grocery to doctor appointments to outings. They had Wii bowling and sing alongs and an indoor pool and sit-ercize. Dad remains uncommitted.
So I push to see other places. I continue to row this boat, nearly by myself, trying to avoid the falls (literally and figuratively) looming in the future. And I ask myself, "If Dad's time is limited, and we know it is, for whose benefit would he be moving? Mine or his?"
We've been begging Dad to move for months, years even. After Mom died, and he was out there in that house by himself, we wanted him closer to us. With Colleen and I living 5 minutes apart, and Jennifer closer to us than to Dad, we just thought we could see him more and do more with him if he lived nearby.
We had many false starts. We looked about 3 years ago at patio homes right down the street from me. They were nice. He knew my mom's cousin who lived there. But the cost was more than he wanted to pay, he said. He wasn't ready. So he didn't move.
Then the bottom fell out of the housing market, and the stock market took a dive, and GM went bankrupt. Dad lost tens of thousands of dollars in equity in his house along with all of his GM stock. He was not going to move with that hanging over his head.
But it was a buyer's market, we said. It's a great time to purchase. You can get a nice place for a song. So we looked. He seemed interested in some other patio homes, but again, they were too much or too big or too small. Back to square one.
So all this time, Dad was dealing with his Parkinson's. He was slow, but he was steady. He was able to do stairs fairly well. He could get up and down out of his chair with ease. He could take his medicine without help. He could drive and take his garbage out and change his sheets and trim his toenails. His moving, then, would have been for us, so that he could be around us more. We worried about him being lonely. Living 30 minutes away made it difficult for him to be with us or for us to be with him as frequently as we would have liked. So he stayed put.
Then a year and a half ago, the health problems kicked in with a vengeance. He had a heart cathetarization done. Eye surgery to lift his lids so they would close. He started taking blood thinner. He began falling every once in awhile. His gait became slower. He had an endoscopy done and they found ulcers in his stomach. He stopped taking blood thinner. He got a pacemaker. His blood pressure went too low, and he began to get light headed when he stood. When they tried to fix it, his pressure went too high. He began seeing things...a black cat in the family room, a dog in the hall, people in the yard who weren't there. He began to have trouble seeing. He couldn't keep track of which medicine to take when. He choked on food. He froze in the driveway and ended up in the hospital for 3 days while his vitals were stabilized.
We found a new doctor who had him go through physical therapy, take a driving test, change medication. Things leveled out for awhile, but we had begun to worry not just about him being lonely, but about him being alone at all. People questioned his driving. We signed him up for free public transportation but he wouldn't take it. The visiting nurse who came after his hospitalization suggested he move. We suggested assisted living. His doctor recommended it. So did his sister and his nephew. Still, he resisted.
He continued to fall. He continued to freeze. He continued to drive. We continued to worry. We got him to look at moving again. At one condo complex, the seller's realtor asked who was looking at the property. We told her Dad was. She raised her eyebrows into her hairline and said, "You need to be looking at assisted living, not condos." We stopped looking at condos.
The doctor saw him in the fall. He told him he should really consider a different living situation. We went to talk to the social worker there. Dad's brother came along. They all pushed assisted living. Dad agreed it might be a good idea. We made an appointment with an elder law attorney and got his papers in order. (His will, un-notarized, was signed in 1972 by two people who are now deceased.) The lawyers strongly suggested assisted living. They even looked at his assets and showed him how he could afford it. He finally agreed to look. So we made an appointment and went last Wednesday.
It was a nice place. There were many people engaged in all kinds of activities. The apartments were very nice. They were fairly roomy. They had full kitchens. They had nice balconies. Three squares a day were included in the fee along with transportation to the grocery to doctor appointments to outings. They had Wii bowling and sing alongs and an indoor pool and sit-ercize. Dad remains uncommitted.
So I push to see other places. I continue to row this boat, nearly by myself, trying to avoid the falls (literally and figuratively) looming in the future. And I ask myself, "If Dad's time is limited, and we know it is, for whose benefit would he be moving? Mine or his?"
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)