1924. 5 years prior to the Great Depression. From then until now, a World War, Vietnam, Pearl Harbor. A President assassinated. More freedoms granted to women and African Americans. Communism scare. Just a few of the things that come to my mind when thinking of history I will never know first-hand. One of the many things I think about when I am around my grandmother.
I visited her on Mother's day.
If you recall, from my first blog entry, she had been uprooted from her place in Westminster and put in an assisted living home in Aurora. The home my grandpa and grandma lived in for 40 years, raising my father and his sister, sold on the market within a few months, for much less than anticipated. My father's mother, my grandmother, is the last of my living grandparents from either side. Sadly enough, I had been instructed not to visit my grandmother's home for several months, so she could "adjust." One thing after another led me to go almost 4 months without seeing a woman who I used to make regular visits to, as she lived a few main streets away.
I arrived at the assisted living home in the late afternoon. The sun was bright, but clouds cooled it off. White walls outside and in, and clean sidewalks cast a ghostly white over the quiet residences. I signed in. Writing my name, check-in, and my grandmother's name. Security code cleared at the door.
I stepped across the threshold, into the microcosm of a world, tucked away from the rest of the civilization. Floral patterned carpet sprawled around a center set of rooms, leading off into four distinct "houses" of residents. I lazily glanced sidelong through a window and noticed a woman with her head in her hand, staring endlessly into a mantle piece, decorating a community dining room. She didn't move. I looked ahead.
"Joyce is in this house," the nurse proclaimed, as she walked further.
I let out a small breath. I was nervous. What was she thinking at this point? 4-months ago, she was quietly waiting for me in her home; a mental-prison; a sanctuary. It felt like she had been plucked mid-conversation from a life of 40-some odd years of a meticulous "good wife" lifestyle, and placed in a bright white institution. Somewhere in all this, her memory started to slip. Vignettes of her life would pop-up frequently, out of context, and she would confusingly reiterate, piece by piece, stories of her life.
Knock, knock.
"Joyce, you have a visitor."
"Oh, come on in!" she called from behind a door.
White on white. The door to the wall to the lukewarm sunlight peering in. It washed over her freshly cut white hair, and backlit her in this eerily ghostly view. She was surprised. Elated. She was on the phone with her daughter, who also hadn't seen her in four months (though she lives in California).
"I have company," she said to Donna on the phone, "I have to go. Wait, who is this again? Donna. I'm on the phone with Donna," she said to me.
I nodded. She hung up the phone.
"I'm so happy to see you," she said through welled-up eyes.
I had been worried. I figured she would be angry. Hurt. Confused. She was none of those things. My brain clouds my perception sometime, plotting against my general progression of life by talking my heart into taking cannonball dives into my stomach. My pit of anxious despair. I nearly welled-up, but life has trained me to remain stone-cold; a feature of my personality I do not particularly enjoy; a trait I always link back to Rules of Making a Good American President, a segment in a history show I saw in my schooling years. One I would gladly discard to prove I am actually a human from Earth, and not some foreign observer, watching and documenting life, rather than experiencing it.
"You're my son, right?" my grandmother asked.
"No, I'm your grandson."
She repeated it slowly with me. She was eager to show me around, introduce me to people, and seemed more full of life than she once did. Though, my grandpa's brother, who took charge to get her into better care, was now seen as a villain. I told her not to dwell on it. Don't be scared of him. She cried at the mention of his name. He instantly brought terror to her.
Her homemaking-worn hands were rough, aged, strong, and took one of mine occasionally to direct me where to go, where to look. Her hairdresser was directly next to her doctor, in the home. Exterior of the "houses" looked like fake school camp houses. In the hallway there were randomly placed plastic babies in cribs, and other assorted places which seemed typical fair for a toddler's playroom. Life had taken her full circle. Back to where she started mentally, but 86 years from when she once lived those years.
"This is my son," she said to another male nurse. She stepped away to look down the hall for other people to introduce me to while I stepped forward to shake his hand.
"I'm her grandson," I respectfully added.
"I was going to say," he said through a light chuckle.
I walked back to her room, where she ended up, after introducing myself to another nurse.
"This place seems nice, Grandma."
"It isn't bad."
Some people passed through the hallway near her room. She peeked out.
"Oh! Its the colored people! Come here I want you to meet the lady."
I started shaking my head.
"Grandma, don't say colored people," I said through a stern whisper.
She always seemed to refer to people first by skin color, even when I was younger. I never understood it. She had grown up in South Carolina, where she met my grandfather, Charles E. Hildreth II. I have faded pictures of my grandfather in his military uniform, kissing her, while she was put-together from head-to-toe in respectable fashion, beautiful makeup, and stylist worthy hair. She was a beautician. Eventually she opened her own "studio" and brought it to her basement when my grandparent's started their family.
We say times were "easier back then" when we look at sun-faded photos of laughter. People were in love. People were happy.
But if you ask me, people haven't changed, its only the things they create around them that does. We still have the same basic needs we started with, no matter what age we are, or what period of history we existed in. This isn't a revolutionary thought. Times get hard, much in the way my grandmother spent a period of her childhood in the Great Depression. Lived through several epic wars. Entertained from radios to big screen television.
I think to myself, with a light chuckle, when I feel like my life gets less complicated when facebook, twitter, and my iPhone sync up. Or when something is wireless. My grandmother must have had hers, too. Now, all of it seems retired in the back of her mind, slowly fading in the white light of her new home, tucked away quietly in the hustle of Aurora streets.
I visited her on Mother's day.
If you recall, from my first blog entry, she had been uprooted from her place in Westminster and put in an assisted living home in Aurora. The home my grandpa and grandma lived in for 40 years, raising my father and his sister, sold on the market within a few months, for much less than anticipated. My father's mother, my grandmother, is the last of my living grandparents from either side. Sadly enough, I had been instructed not to visit my grandmother's home for several months, so she could "adjust." One thing after another led me to go almost 4 months without seeing a woman who I used to make regular visits to, as she lived a few main streets away.
I arrived at the assisted living home in the late afternoon. The sun was bright, but clouds cooled it off. White walls outside and in, and clean sidewalks cast a ghostly white over the quiet residences. I signed in. Writing my name, check-in, and my grandmother's name. Security code cleared at the door.
I stepped across the threshold, into the microcosm of a world, tucked away from the rest of the civilization. Floral patterned carpet sprawled around a center set of rooms, leading off into four distinct "houses" of residents. I lazily glanced sidelong through a window and noticed a woman with her head in her hand, staring endlessly into a mantle piece, decorating a community dining room. She didn't move. I looked ahead.
"Joyce is in this house," the nurse proclaimed, as she walked further.
I let out a small breath. I was nervous. What was she thinking at this point? 4-months ago, she was quietly waiting for me in her home; a mental-prison; a sanctuary. It felt like she had been plucked mid-conversation from a life of 40-some odd years of a meticulous "good wife" lifestyle, and placed in a bright white institution. Somewhere in all this, her memory started to slip. Vignettes of her life would pop-up frequently, out of context, and she would confusingly reiterate, piece by piece, stories of her life.
Knock, knock.
"Joyce, you have a visitor."
"Oh, come on in!" she called from behind a door.
White on white. The door to the wall to the lukewarm sunlight peering in. It washed over her freshly cut white hair, and backlit her in this eerily ghostly view. She was surprised. Elated. She was on the phone with her daughter, who also hadn't seen her in four months (though she lives in California).
"I have company," she said to Donna on the phone, "I have to go. Wait, who is this again? Donna. I'm on the phone with Donna," she said to me.
I nodded. She hung up the phone.
"I'm so happy to see you," she said through welled-up eyes.
I had been worried. I figured she would be angry. Hurt. Confused. She was none of those things. My brain clouds my perception sometime, plotting against my general progression of life by talking my heart into taking cannonball dives into my stomach. My pit of anxious despair. I nearly welled-up, but life has trained me to remain stone-cold; a feature of my personality I do not particularly enjoy; a trait I always link back to Rules of Making a Good American President, a segment in a history show I saw in my schooling years. One I would gladly discard to prove I am actually a human from Earth, and not some foreign observer, watching and documenting life, rather than experiencing it.
"You're my son, right?" my grandmother asked.
"No, I'm your grandson."
She repeated it slowly with me. She was eager to show me around, introduce me to people, and seemed more full of life than she once did. Though, my grandpa's brother, who took charge to get her into better care, was now seen as a villain. I told her not to dwell on it. Don't be scared of him. She cried at the mention of his name. He instantly brought terror to her.
Her homemaking-worn hands were rough, aged, strong, and took one of mine occasionally to direct me where to go, where to look. Her hairdresser was directly next to her doctor, in the home. Exterior of the "houses" looked like fake school camp houses. In the hallway there were randomly placed plastic babies in cribs, and other assorted places which seemed typical fair for a toddler's playroom. Life had taken her full circle. Back to where she started mentally, but 86 years from when she once lived those years.
"This is my son," she said to another male nurse. She stepped away to look down the hall for other people to introduce me to while I stepped forward to shake his hand.
"I'm her grandson," I respectfully added.
"I was going to say," he said through a light chuckle.
I walked back to her room, where she ended up, after introducing myself to another nurse.
"This place seems nice, Grandma."
"It isn't bad."
Some people passed through the hallway near her room. She peeked out.
"Oh! Its the colored people! Come here I want you to meet the lady."
I started shaking my head.
"Grandma, don't say colored people," I said through a stern whisper.
She always seemed to refer to people first by skin color, even when I was younger. I never understood it. She had grown up in South Carolina, where she met my grandfather, Charles E. Hildreth II. I have faded pictures of my grandfather in his military uniform, kissing her, while she was put-together from head-to-toe in respectable fashion, beautiful makeup, and stylist worthy hair. She was a beautician. Eventually she opened her own "studio" and brought it to her basement when my grandparent's started their family.
We say times were "easier back then" when we look at sun-faded photos of laughter. People were in love. People were happy.
But if you ask me, people haven't changed, its only the things they create around them that does. We still have the same basic needs we started with, no matter what age we are, or what period of history we existed in. This isn't a revolutionary thought. Times get hard, much in the way my grandmother spent a period of her childhood in the Great Depression. Lived through several epic wars. Entertained from radios to big screen television.
I think to myself, with a light chuckle, when I feel like my life gets less complicated when facebook, twitter, and my iPhone sync up. Or when something is wireless. My grandmother must have had hers, too. Now, all of it seems retired in the back of her mind, slowly fading in the white light of her new home, tucked away quietly in the hustle of Aurora streets.
trekka:
THis brought tears to my eyes.. Really struck a chord with me. This is beautiful. You should write a book.
totem:
I love your blogs.