Forgotten Moments & Fast Socks
Notes from a visit with my grandmother
“Leave me here,” my grandmother instructed from the floor. I held her by the armpits as she scooched around the metal door sill. The whole time she winced with effort.
“I’ll help you up,” I said. She glared up at me as if I hadn’t caught her on the way down. She’d made it four steps holding onto my arm before collapsing like a Twizzler.
This was the most physical contact I’d had with her in years. We are not a touchy-feely family.
I tried to coax her up, but she looked defeated. She’d rather perch on the stoop for hours than have me lift her.
My grandmother has lost a lot to dementia over the last few years. Pride will be the last thing her mind forfeits.
We stayed in our deadlock while everyone else packed up lunch. She put her head in her hands, and I stood uselessly on the deck.
Her dining room loomed behind us. It used to be where we had family gatherings. My grandmother always sat closest to the back door, often reaching behind herself to let out the dog.
Her seat is no longer there. We moved to clean up after Honey, who had waited at the door until she couldn’t hold it anymore. My grandmother had never made it.
“I feel sick,” she said, and I kind of did, too.
I remember a time when she would make decadent meals and buy too many desserts for our six-person family. On Christmas, she would host two dinners and a brunch. We’d have leftovers for weeks.
While she prepped, I would run around the house sneaking treats and bugging my uncles. I sprinted around the sharp corners of the kitchen at full speed in socks with rubber grips. Go-Fast Socks we called them.
“Go, go, go!” she cheered while putting out a shrimp ring, a cheese board, or a cookie tin. Possibly all three.
Today, we ate pre-made sandwiches and monitored her eating.
“Slow down,” my grandfather had told her, “that’s enough.”
“I think I’m going to throw up,” my grandmother said.
My mom came outside with a bucket, already knowing what lay ahead. She coaxed her through a long, violent spell of sickness while I left to grab her a glass of water.
Inside, my impulse to help was immediately overshadowed by a desire to be as far away from the puke as possible.
Guilt tugged on my gag reflex. I stood as uselessly as before, just from the other side of the door. It had been nicer looking into a version of the past than this new reality.
In between wretches, my grandmother spotted me. Her expression made it impossible to know if my presence was soothing or adding to her embarrassment.
“When did Jamie get so tall?” She asked my mom.
My mom and I laughed. I haven’t grown since I was 13.
We kept laughing, but I wondered if she knew how old I was at all. When had I stopped aging in her mind? She will only ever see the past again.
I checked my phone only to see a BeReal notification. I don’t take the picture. This isn’t a moment I’ll be able to forget anyway.
Next week my grandmother is moving into a home. We already know she’s going to hate it. She once did a month-long trial and crossed off each day on the calendar. It was the most effort she’s ever put into tracking time.
If it isn’t her pride that goes last, it will be her stubbornness.
Even stuck on the ground and puking - she would argue that she’s fine on her own. Deep down I have no idea if she actually believes herself. Maybe it’s all a front.
The grandma I grew up with would understand that it was time. She’d still complain and go begrudgingly, but she would go.
Now it’s a complete possibility that she’ll fight the whole way there.
When my grandmother felt a bit better, my dad lifted her into the house. He used the same method he had several times before - her arms braced around his neck, his under her shoulders.
He told me about the technique as if it was normal conversation fodder.
“Just like a squat,” he said.
I couldn’t see anything familiar in the motion. So much of my grandmother is unrecognizable, too.
Her smell has become more rancid than she’d ever allow her right mind. Her eyes sometimes glaze over. Her face has sprouted new hair, which my mom can only groom in between the laundry and the housework and the medication plan and the groceries and the, and the, and the...
When is the same is her chair. My grandma has been willfully rotting in the same spot since before she had a diagnosis.
A version of that chair has existed since I was little. It used to be a respite. Long days of gardening, painting, or shopping all ended in the chair. Each new day started there, too.
When I was little, I brought all my prized possessions to the chair. I would run up with pictures, grades, gymnastics moves, or new books for her to look at. When I went shopping, the chair was the main audience for my fashion show. The runway stopped at the full extension of the recliner.
“That looks like grandma” was a common declaration from my mom on the nearby couch. I always took it as a compliment.
Slowly the chair became more and more of her day. My mom and I moved out when I was 14, and she filled the house with the TV as background noise. She would sit there eating, knitting, or reading paperbacks with daytime shows as company.
The chair morphed from a furniture piece to The Chair - an execution of her own making.
When we placed her in the chair, I noticed the same James Patterson paperback that had been next to her for years. She’s been retracing the same few chapters over and over again.
I’m bummed to think that her last book might be The President Is Missing.
My mom made up a plate for dinner before we left. She covered it and left a sticky telling my grandmother when to eat it.
“We don’t want you to get sick again,” she explained.
“Did I get sick?” my grandmother asked.
She grinned at me, oblivious to the whole ordeal from lunch. In her giant chair, with her frail body, she looked like the smallest thing in the world.
I wondered if that’s what she meant when she said I was tall.
All night I thought about her alone. So many hours had passed. What if she fell again? What if she got sick?
My mom looked at me knowingly. This is on her mind every day. My grandfather’s, too. We’ve all started our own countdowns to her new life in the home.
Maybe then everyone will be able to sleep.
The next morning we went over, and I was half expecting to find her hurt. My mom had shared horror stories of finding her in all kinds of scenarios.
“I will never let you do this for me,” she said. I’m sure my grandmother would’ve said the same thing.
Inside, my grandmother had made it from her chair to bed and back again. We exhale. Another day mentally crossed off the calendar.
My mom wanted to come by to drop off new clothes for the home. We sat around the chair and my mom held up new items in a perverted version of my childhood fashion shows.
New pyjamas. New undershirts. New socks with little grips on the bottom to help her with balance.
“Go-Fast Socks,” I said.
And the three of us laughed at a small memory we still share.