Grandma E taught me love by spoiling me with presents, listening to my sorrows and dreams, bragging about my achievements and teaching me her desert recipes. At the end of her life, on days she did not remember my name or know who I was, she taught me that her best present was her PRESENCE. She taught me to love in the moment unconditionally without expectation.

flashback…… 

I just had to visit Grandma E in the nursing home and tell her my latest Costa Rica surf travel adventures. 

Nothing could shock grandma E and she didn’t judge or make you feel bad no matter what you told her. No matter how sad I ever was, she could wipe away my tears from across the room with her crystal blue eyes.

If I ever said it was hard to work AND go to school-Grandma E would tell how she had to take care of THREE kids all on her own. 

After all my grandfather had died of lung cancer when my mom was only 14.

My mom worked as a waitress while attending high school to help pay for her Catholic school education . Education was important. So was singing, playing the piano and making deserts from scratch.

As her story goes, Grandma almost went blind after falling off a horse but some rich man liked her singing and paid her hospital bills.

Before we could ever say : Grandma E we heard this story already, and Mom said you never went blind…

 She would lift her head to the ceiling and close her eyes belting out one of her favorite tunes: like a bridge over troubled ….water…..

Tears would fill her closed eyes forcing them open revealing redness making the crystal blue of her eyes contrast even more. As soon as the song was over she would switch to laughter and soap operas and she would bake pineapple upside down cake, divinity cookies, or blueberry pie. 

I  wanted to tell Grandma E all about my magical trip to Costa Rica where I surfed in the ocean and rode horses through the jungle and met a shaman, spiritual guide who invited my friends, my son and I in a temezcal -a sweat lodge tent made of rocks and stones.

  He had a dog by his side that looked more like a wolf. The college kids traveling and staying in hostels brought him weed and he showed us how to cut coconuts from trees so we could drink water right from the the coconut..

He made oil from the coconuts so our skin wouldn’t peel from the too hot sun. 

Only my son didn’t like the idea of bon fires with strangers even if the strangers were shamans and the temezcal seemed dangerous- not “cool and enlightening” as I had suggested it was. We were after all in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. He wanted to go back to the six bedroom house we were staying at with the private pool and eat home grown food prepared by a chef.

 Oh how I wanted to tell my grandmaEVERYTHING! How fun it was to be able to balance on a surf board and how the ocean was like heaven and the birds were like angels and the airport lost my luggage and I didn’t care about a thing!

 I look at my Grandma E and she is not the same person. When I used to visit she would always announce: The Writers here– from her hospital bed , even if her her voice was straining and it was hard for her to talk. 

Her big crystal blue eyes always sparkling. She would say it as if it was a FACT.  The way she would brag my uncle the business man is here . The same way she would say: I need more sugar in my coffee. 

Now there are days she doesn’t remember my name or know who I am. 

So I hold her hand like she once held mine as a baby . Only now she’s laying in the bed unable to walk and barely talk. I squeeze her hand tighter and she squeezes back.

 She is no longer fat, but a bag of bones with pale wrinkled skin hanging off as if her arms were a chicken bone. Her head is slumped to the side and she can’t hold it up. The poem I wrote called That’s what I love about you Grandma used to be framed and sitting proudly on her night stand. She used to brag about her Puerto Rican , personal trainer, granddaughter that can do cartwheels and handstands. And I used to do them in her small nursing home room. Only she doesn’t know me  and the poem is no where in sight. One of the nurses must have moved it.

Things change.

After a few squeezes Grandma E pushes my hand away.  I am happy for her strength and rejected by her swift hand. She is in too much pain to hear about my travels and brag about my athletic abilities to the nursing staff. 

I look at my grandma and think Why? Why?

Why do people change? It hurts too much to think of her this way and so instead I start to hum a song and make up a balance beam routine in my head to the beat of the song. 

In therapy this is called disassociation.

“The disruption of the normal integration experience that would normally be held together in awareness are fragmented or split apart to prevent the person from being overwhelmed. The escape when there is no escape.”

 I call it creativity, make believe, my preferred reality and I have been doing it as long as I have been alive. 

I look into her eyes and they are not filled with sadness or joy. They are just stoic. 

She opens her mouth to speak and only a hiss comes out as she tries to move her lips to form words. A nurse walks in the room and she seems to light up. Grandma E strains to move her head turning to the nurse and whispers: I love you. 

I love you too Evelyn, the nurse smiles back. 

I look at the nurse who could not possibly love my grandmother the way I do. She just met her. My grandmother and I have memories. There was that horse ride game we would play where we would sit on her leg and she would move it up and down. Or the denture game where she would take out her dentures and show us her gums. We had pot-roast, and card games, and sneaking candy, and reading tabloids and watching soap operas when dad wasn’t looking. 

My grandmother reached towards the nurse and they seemed to speak to each other with their eyes, without words. 

Oh you want your glasses? The nurse asked.

My grandmother nodded. 

The nurse opened the side drawer pulling out her glasses placing them on her face slowly with tenderness and care. My grandmother smiled ear to ear the same way she used to smile when I would do cartwheels and write her poems. 

At that moment I realized the nurse DID love my grandmother. She loved her in the moment. Without expectation of anything back. She loved her purely and so my grandmother loved her back. I could also do the same. I didn’t need to tell her stories or reminisce of the past. It wasn’t about me.  Love just is. 

I said a silent prayer of gratitude and suddenly I felt that same warm blanket hug where there are so many blankets you don’t know where one starts and another ends, and I didn’t have to ask why, why why, I could just smile and be. 

My grandmother whispered: did you bring me a bavarian creme donut?

The nurse poked her head in and chimed in- no sugar Evelyn. 

And I smiled for the moment my grandmother recognized me as her granddaughter that snuck in donuts to the nursing home.