Something Free

My post today is about regret and family. So, when New Friend Julie won this space and was able to fill it with whatever came out of her head, the below item about shame and family (and also mortality) arose. Seemed apropos to post it today, to ensure that Saturday today is as depressing as possible. For my next trick, I will show a sad kitten.

I prefer to operate under the notion that while I am not necessarily a nice person, I am absolutely a good person. My heart is kind. I try to help others when I can. Those things should count when it gets down to the nitty gritty of character assessment.

When I step back and consider my big picture, however, I am completely filled with shame. My deepest fear is not, as one would expect, something happening to my children or my husband. My deepest fear is not drowning, or death by fire, or even clowns (and all of those things terrify me). My deepest fear is losing my mental faculties. Being that selfish should be enough to bring on the shame, but when I consider my actions over the course of my life brought on by this fear my bowels quiver and my heart tightens and I want to brick myself into a wall.

I have no memory of my grandfather when his mind was sharp and whole. The memories I do have are of feelings of fear and revulsion. He terrified me. His temper had been short and legend, but I wasn’t afraid of him turning on me, or yelling at me, or of his anger at all. As a tiny child I think I somehow feared that whatever was wrong with him was contagious. As long as he sat at his desk in the corner of the dining room and counted and stacked his pennies I was fine. If he even happened to walk near me I would flinch and veer away from him. Large, full lips have been passed down through his side of the family, and I remember his always had a sheen of saliva on them that caught any light and shimmered. Even at the age of five I found that repulsive. As a teenager I began dating a guy who appeared to have a saliva problem, and my memories of my grandfather were triggered so hard that I stopped dating him.

My grandfather walked with a shuffle that at the time was attributed to atherosclerosis, but in retrospect it was most likely a symptom of his dementia. I didn’t care what caused it. All I knew was that because I could hear his slippers scuffing the carpet I could get the fuck out of his way. On the occasions when he did turn on me my grandmother would get between us and defend me. My grandmother was tiny, but she was the strongest person I’ve ever met.

On the day my grandfather died in 1981 I cried with relief. As I cried the first wave of shame hit me. My mother was upset at losing her father, my grandmother had lost her husband of over 50 years, hell, even MY father was upset over the loss. I sat there with my heart skipping that my stress level had been reduced and that Thing was no longer around. That Thing had been a man at one time. That man had rescued a woman from drowning. That man had been a teacher, and a salesman, and an executive at RCA. That man had provided for his family during the Depression and made sure they were fed and had a roof. I never knew that man.

I thought I was home free.

When I was twelve years old the phone rang and my grandmother answered it to discover that her older brother was dead. When she hung up the phone she said, “I’m all alone now.” My mother and I looked at her in confusion and reminded her that she had two stepsisters and a half-sister and us. She looked at us blankly and repeated herself. Dread can hit you in many ways I am sure. When I realized that she had just amputated her entire life after the age of 11 my intestines filled with ice and the chill hit the top of my skull. She scooted her mind back to a time when her life was herself, her parents, and her brother. Everything that came after, including her children and grandchildren, disappeared in a split second. She knew that we lived with her, but she never again recognized us as hers. The doctors told us she had something called “brain atrophy.” We took their diagnosis and shat upon it. Atrophy is something that occurs over time. My grandmother had flipped a switch. It was devastating.

She was easy enough to deal with at first. Although she didn’t remember people she functioned very well as an adult human being. We began taking care of the cooking and bill paying, but she still cleaned her own home and conversed with folks who came to visit. She might not have known who they were, but she enjoyed the company. My mother worked full time, and I would come home from school and assume stewardship of the situation until my mother got home. I was probably far too young to be given this responsibility, but I can not use that as an excuse for how I reacted to her.

I was again revolted. My temper shortened, and when she reached a point where she wasn’t functioning anymore I would yell at her. My grandmother had been my secondary caretaker for my entire life. When I was small I referred to both her and my mother as, “Mom.” She never yelled at me. Ever. And if she forgot herself and what she was doing in any way I exploded. Until I die I will carry in my mind the sight of her flinching from me and sobbing because I screamed at her over something ridiculous one day. Ridiculous progressed to dangerous, eventually. One day she tried to make herself instant coffee and she filled a mug with water and granules and sat it directly on the burner on the stove. We tried to manage things. My mother bought her a Thermos and left it full of coffee for her every morning, and she’d make sandwiches for her and leave them in the fridge so she wouldn’t have to try to feed herself.

And then one day I came home to find the screen door locked and the inside door ajar. I pressed my face to the jalousie windows and shaded my eyes with cupped hands and saw one of her legs next to an overturned chair. I wrapped my hand, shattered one of the window panes, used the glass to cut the screen open, and raced inside to find her flat on her back on the floor. I called 911 and my mother and sat there and simply stared at her once I knew she was breathing. She ended up going from the hospital to a nursing home where she shut herself down completely. She was fed through a tube implanted in her stomach because she tried to starve herself to death. Our doctor told us that while it is perfectly legal to pull the plug on someone and cease extraordinary measures it’s illegal to let someone starve. My grandmother never spoke a word again, and while I would visit her every week at the beginning, my mother went every single day. I stopped going. I told myself I didn’t see the point because she didn’t know me.

I’m so full of shit.

For four years my mother visited her almost every single day. On Christmas Day in 1990 my mom asked me to go with her, and I expelled a heavy sigh and went along. We walked into her room, and she was lying under the standard issue white thermal blanket. The head of the bed was elevated a little. Her eyes were open, and when I walked around the bed to her right side she turned her head to look at me. And then her body arched and she gasped. We jammed the button to call a nurse, and she ran into the room, took one look at her and the monitors, and hustled us out. She called a code, and people came running from all directions. The nurse walked back out and told us my grandmother was gone. I spent my Christmas calling family members and cutting off their holiday greetings with the words, “Grandmom died.”

I’ve spent the last 19 years sucking on the fact that my grandmother, who “didn’t know anyone,” waited to see me one last time before she died.

Over the past several years my father’s older sister developed Alzheimer’s Disease and has been steadily getting worse. Medications have prevented it from becoming horrible, but she’s still in decline. My mother, who is 79 years old, moved into her home and though she works full time as well she provides the majority of her care. I thought that over the years I had matured as a person. I might have to a small degree. However, when my daughter was born and they both drove down here to visit my aunt walked out of my house and wandered alone down the very busy road we live on. I thrust my daughter at my mom and went after her. My aunt yanked her arm from me and informed me she was simply taking a walk. It took every shred of self control I had not to yell at her. I avoid calling the house unless my mother is home, because even though she remembers my voice most days (although we’re certain she wouldn’t know me if she saw me) I am uncomfortable speaking with her.

My deepest fear? Not the actual loss of my mind. My deepest fear is that one day I will inspire these feelings in my own children and grandchildren. I am terrified that I will repulse them by pissing myself and smearing my own shit on the walls. I am terrified that they will stop seeing me as a loved one and only view me as a burden. I am terrified that they will ship me off to the care of strangers and avoid me.

Before that happens I will put a bullet in my head.

And I am deeply, deeply ashamed.