Sands of Time

People age every day. Time is constantly passing. My grandmother, Garnet, daughter of an Irish immigrant and a very strong, determined woman is 96 years old. I left Seattle, Washington for Peace Corps Panama 2.5 years ago and was not sure that I would see her again. When one lives far from someone so elderly, there is no telling which visit will be the last.

Garnet fell and broke her hip in 2005. She was placed in a full-time care facility and shocking us all, learned to walk unaided again. She moved home to her three floor house where she lived alone. Another fall placed her in a senior living apartment, where she had been for some time.

Garnet had two bad falls in early October, breaking her arm one day and her hip the very next day. (Garnet has osteoporosis.) She is back in the full-time care facility, mostly on bedrest, but also learning to walk again, one step at a time with a physical therapist.

I visited Garnet on Tuesday and was shocked to see my feisty grandmother tiny and vulnerable. This is not the woman I once knew. I visited, verbally reminding her of who I was because she did not recognize my voice or see me well. I asked a caregiver about her condition because I was so shocked...is this really my grandmother? How much time does she have left. (I didn't really ask those questions, but I thought them.) The caregiver said that she was "sharp", that she knew everyone's name, and that she made them laugh. That DOES sound like Garnet, but still, I retreated to the restroom and cried.

A [drunk] friend urged me to return to visit her again and it DID go much better. I knew what to expect from my grandmother and bought her a flowering Christmas cactus to brighten her room. She was not a traditional warm, cookie-baking, knitting, spoiling grandmother but she's family and I love her. Now in her vulnerable state, she HAS transformed into a more loving woman, thanking me a dozen times for my visit and loving me forever. She has always said goodbye in the same, evermore appropriate way, "BYE FOR NOW," because this visit may be the last, or there may be many visits in the future for this tenacious woman whom I love.