The phrase, "Oh, I didn't go anywhere. I just wasn't answering the phone." Comes to mind. One might reasonably assume that my prolonged absence had something to do with the holidays or perhaps a vacation. This isn't exactly the case.
First of all the old man was on vacation. This is never good for me. When he isn't working, he and the the crazy lady (aka my mother) push back their bedtime to almost two in the morning. This pretty much eliminates my private time. I cannot write with them awake and about as they both have that god awful habit of walking in and reading the computer screen over your shoulder to see what you are doing.
Then there is the Christmas thing. I don't really hate it. I just get really aggravated with all the petty things leading up to the date. The crazy lady goes extra nuts what with the need to prepare the house for the holiday. (Decorations. cleaning. Putting things away that we are going to need the day after, but should be out of sight for the Holiday gathering). Christmas Eve is our big day. We have prime rib. We set fourteen places. By the time everything is said and done I've spent a small eternity with a very intense woman who I just want to get away from so I make her even more intense by refusing to be dragged along to yet another gathering on Christmas Day. It is the gathering for my older brother's side of the family. While I certainly love and respect all that side of the family, I'm not particularly close with them and all I really want to do is kill things on the computer without someone always asking me (aka telling me) to do this chore or that chore.
So while the folks are away Christmas day the phone rings. I look at the caller ID. It is from the home of a family that I know has somebody in the hospital with cancer related surgery. There is no way I'm answering the. The chance that I might end up having to deliver bad news to my mother is all too great. Let the answering service buffer me.
Side note: For some reason the folks feel I should always answer the phone when they are out. I don't understand this. The answering service will record a message. I notoriously forgot messages. They just don't stick in my brain. Write it down one might say. My handwriting is often impossible for even me to read. Numbers get just plain butchered. It doesn't matter. My unwillingness to answer the phone galls them.
So the parents come home late on Christmas night (possibly into the morning after). One of the the very first questions (after having me unload the van of presents) is, "Did anyone call?" The mother is still ticked with me for not going with for the evening's festivities and I can see her getting just plain angry when I relay the fact that the phone did ring, but I didn't pick up. The mother goes to stomp past me on her way to retrieve the phone messages. Her foot catches on a stack of bottled water. She goes down. Hard. It hurts allot, but she doesn't want to admit there is a fracture. Who wants to spend Christmas night in the emergency room.
We all go to bed knowing there is a fracture and that the morning will require a trip to the emergency room.
Bright and early the old man wakes me up and tells me to get dressed, we are going to the hospital. I think, "There is absolutely no reason. I need to go. The old man is going to drop Mom off at the entrance and park the car. I will be there, primarily to escort my mother the 10 feet from the entrance to the check in desk." I don't say this. I get dressed. I know the old man is pissed at me. My mom in the days that will follow will joke that I am the reason her arm is broken. I am fairly certain my father feels this to be true.
Doctor's office's and emergency room's have a special kind of torture in them now. They always have a television on. The problem is they always have on shows like Judge Judy or The View on at a volume on can not tune out. After about four hours of this hell my mother could see I was about ready to explode. My mother asked If I wanted to go. I said yes. She asked my father if he would take me. He said no. (Again part of it was the fact that he would never leave my mother to wait alone in the emergency room, but allot of it was he was pissed at me and wanted me there as punishment.) I finally decided to walk. I asked the old man if he his ear protection with him. He said it was out in the car. He did not offer to get it for me. He did not offer me the keys to the car that I might fetch them myself. I was pretty much (explicative deleted) out of luck. I buttoned up my jean jacket and braved the 39 degree weather. I may have stopped to warm up at a video game store along the way.
Hours after I arrive home the parents return. My mother is worn out and turns in early (sleeping in the computer room because she cannot get up and down the stairs to her bedroom with the monster temporary cast on her arm). Eventually I go to sleep.
The next morning a cat is tossed into my room to wake me up. I come downstairs and hear my mother half talking half sobbing. I ask my father what's wrong. My grandmother from my older brother's side of the family, has passed away. The paramedic called my mother because, when trying to get answers from my grandfather (who suffers from dementia) they finally get em to tell em the names of his children. My grandfather lists em from youngest to oldest and includes the name of my mother's first husband (who passed away thirty five years ago). My mother has the same first name as my aunt and for some reason my mother's name was the first of the two on the list by the phone. The paramedic is in a hurry and needs a name of a funeral home to release the body to. She names the local place that buried her first husband so many years ago, then has to get a hold of my aunts and uncle to not only break the news to them, that their mother has died, but to inform them that she was pressed into making a decision on funeral directors.
Hours later we arrive at the house. For some reason the funeral home has yet to pick up the body. All of My grandmother's children see her as she is laying on the kitchen floor. (I stay outside. I saw her this last thanksgiving. That is my final image of her) A sad truth is learned. Sometimes there is no dignified way to get ones deceased relative out of the house through narrow halls and steep stairs. My brother is furious. The men don't even cover up the head all the way.
The rest of the week is spent on things related to to the wake and funeral.
I am saddened that the world lost one of it's best. My grandmother was loved by many and spent many years taking care of a husband who stopped working and took up drinking full time, long before he ever got sick. When asked why she cared for him rather then let him be put into a long term care facility she said that she would never have had her four wonderful children, 23 grandchildren and eight great grand children with out him. She didn't do all that alone I think was her phrase.
Gram was also a lifelong Cubs fan. She managed to pass this devotion on to most of her children and grandchildren (including my older brother). The first time I ever went to a baseball game was with my brothers and my grandmother. If I were a sports fan, I probably would cheer for the cubs too, despite the fact they are part of the north side.
This is one of those rare occasions where I don't know where to end. I have no summary. I can not begin to do justice in describing my grandmother's life.
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