Remembrances of Grandma

"I just wish I could have told her in the living years." --Mike and the Mechanics, 1986.

It was just another day in the spring of seventh grade. My parents were still at work, so I asked Grandma to drive me across town to play basketball with a couple friends. She was retired and had lived in our house my entire life. Even though she was 74, she set down her needlepoint, grabbed her keys and began shuffling towards the car.

Suddenly she slipped and fell, landing squarely on her hip. She took a minute to rest, flinching in pain but attempting to smile as she moved behind the steering wheel. I took a long look at her before she dropped me off, and I briefly thought about returning home instead. But with the callous attitude typical of middle-schoolers, friends came before family, so I kept going. No kiss on the cheek, no thank you.

Grandma drove home alone. It was one of the last independent acts of her life.

I noticed Grandma looked frail, had lost weight and was walking a bit slower. But I thought little about it. The doctors said the chemotherapy treatments she'd received five years earlier destroyed the cancer she was battling. They said, "She'll live to 100," and I believed them. But when Grandma went to have her hip examined the next day, the doctors only shook their heads. "She has a few months left," they said. "She's in tremendous pain--another tumor the size of a grapefruit. It didn't show up on the tests until now."

A nursing home was the only option. Mom was seven months pregnant, Dad was teaching and coaching 30 miles away. Noother relatives. No money for a private nurse. Besides, we thought, the staff was friendly, and we'd stop by every day for a couple hours and take her out for walks and snacks. She could still clip coupons from the newspaper and keep some small flower pots in her room. Then we'd bring her home in June and take it one day at a time.

That's when I learned you can't plan much in life. Cancer's slow march progressed quicker than anyone predicted, and it reached terminal stages less than two weeks later. After spending five full days in a morphine-induced coma, Grandma died. Words were left unsaid, deeds undone. Had we known, we would have done things so differently.

The traces Grandma left on my soul. She taught me to read, then drove me around town to show off my talents to her friends. She bought me caramels--the good, chewy ones--with the last of her Social Security check. She never liked sports but nevertheless drove 200 miles to watch me pitch--and lose--the Little League state championship. Her pep talk afterwards soothed my battered ego.

My family is not touchy-feely. Handshakes are profound emotional gestures. But occasionally when I cooked popcorn late at night, I'd bring Grandma a small bowl. I think she appreciated it, even if it was burned.

But I wish I'd told her, right to her face, that I loved her. For some reason I never did, or at least not that I can remember. Which is why I'm so glad that in Grandma's last hours of life, as she lay in a hospice bedroom with breathing tubes taped in her mouth, I kissed her on the forehead. I hope she knew it was me.

Sometimes I rummage through the attic and look over what's left of Grandma's possessions. There's just her trademark white button-down sweater, a few letters and some tattered pictures. Not much to commemorate the person who guided me through my first 12 years of life, who taught me to play the piano, woke me up for class and cooked me huge lunches of cabbage rolls, bean soup, buttered noodles and applesauce. Grandma gave what little she had so I could have a lot. Thank God for memories.

It's clear to me now that I was blessed with a grandmother (and two loving parents, thankfully) who taught by example. I learned the principles of right and wrong, of compassion for the less fortunate and of respect for all humankind. I had room to grow and to follow my own dreams at my own pace. Hopefully my children will be so lucky.

Grandma died just before Mother's Day in the early morning of May 8, 1988. I will never forget holding her hand and praying over her listless body while she suddenly opened her eyes and looked around the room. She said nothing as her heart stopped beating, but squeezed my hand tightly as she slipped the surly bounds of earth to touch the face of God.

My mother and I drove home in silence. I walked outside beneath a starry Midwestern sky. A gentle breeze swirled through the cornfields stretching across the horizon. I sat down, overwhelmed by the beauty. Then I cried and cried and cried and never thought I would stop.

I miss you, Grandma.

Christopher R. McFadden '97 of Eliot House was senior editor of The Crimson in 1996.