Our Matriarch

It's always been complicated with Grandma Margaret. On one hand, the woman never forgot your birthday. Never. She didn't send anything but she always called. She called to wish you a Happy Birthday but mostly she called to fuss at you for not calling more often, extract some promises from you about the future frequency of phone calls, and give you a run down of what ailed her. Sometimes she would also put you on notice for what she was expecting for her birthday in addition to the obligatory phone call. If more than six weeks passed without her hearing from me, she would start calling my house at all hours of the day and night and leaving messages from stern to plaintive until I broke down and called her. She would often cry at some point during the call, wondering if she would ever see her first born grandchild again. I would assure her that she would and usually promise to send her a picture and a picture of her granddog too.

It's always been complicated for my dad, too. I don't remember the last time he was in Memphis. It was probably when one of my mother's relatives passed. I do remember my mother telling me that he seemed to having a good time and had not told his mother he was coming into town. He had planned to go see her but she got word somehow and called while they were at dinner and talked to him like he was a child. My mother said she could watch his countenance change as they talked. But she was still his mother. He sent money monthly and talked to her far more often than I did although she sometimes hunted him like she started hunting me. I haven't talked to her since her birthday last year, she didn't have my new number. My dad told me she seemed to be in decline. Neither of us had been home in years, me because I really don't know any of my extended family and I find it stressful to be around that many strangers who are supposed to be familiar because they are family. There is also the push-pull dynamic in Grandma Margaret who insists you spend the night and stops just short of timing how long the grandkids spend time with my mother's side of the family versus her. We stayed in a hotel the last time we travelled as a family to avoid that tearful confrontation.

Still, my father and I were talking about a trip together this summer to see her. I said I would bring a camcorder and get our oral history. Most of the people she would mention would have long since passed but it would still be nice to know who they were and have an activity to distract her from fussing at me or telling me about her arthritis or asking me to clip her toenails again. I will never ever forget clipping her toenails. How hard and thick they were, how the shards sometimes hit my face, how my father walked by and remarked that God would reward me for helping my Grandmother and helping her feel more comfortable. How my brother and sister looked at me as they walked by with equal parts of mirth and profound sympathy/horror. Before I got the text message tonight from my dad telling me Grandma Margaret was in hospice and expected to die soon, she had actually been on my mind last night as I clipped my own toenails after six weeks in the boot. I thought, 'this toenail reminds me of Grandma Margaret,' and then I got lost in thought wondering how toenails can become so impossibly thick. She would never admit to being well so I never thought she would actually get sick.

But today I feel bad for all that I can not make up. And I wonder if I should blow off this wedding to go see her because I was always sure I wasn't lying when I said she would see me again. As horrible as it is to say, I think I was saving up to see her before she passed but not so much I would have to go there every year. And now I don't know how I will see her at all. I feel bad because she chased me so and I resented it. It doesn't mean she was right to manipulate and control things but regardless of the motive and method, I think she just wanted people in her life. She wanted me in her life. Her first born grandchild. She liked telling me the stories about me pulling out all of her pots and pans and large chunky hands crushing donuts in my tiny determined (and greedy) fists. She told me once that my dad was her favorite but he was the only one who left and always fought coming back, so complicated were his feelings for his mother. So my father is sad this Father's day weekend to be facing the loss of his mother and my sister moving out completely unprepared and near the hottest mess of finances and long term planning I think I've ever seen. If I could do the "right" thing, I would drop everything and go be with him, especially on this weekend.

But I won't. No one will. My sister won't rally. My brother won't rally. My mother is going to be in Memphis on the 3rd anyway and she can't rally, her dialysis supplies can't be diverted that quickly. She can drop him off at the airport on Sunday and pray for him and pray for her. I will call my grandmother in the morning. If she's lucid I'm sure she will be happy to hear my voice. I hope she won't ask to see me but I kind of hope she fusses at me a little.