Lenore

This here is my Nan, as you're likely to find her. She doesn't leave the house without her purse. Doesn't leave the room without her purse. You'll see it, constantly, cluched under her knuckles as she makes her way around the world. And once she gets there, she expects a beer. At 87, she's known to show up for family gatherings in black leather pants and lips adorned in hot pink. Always. Sometimes, we have to take her by the elbows and lead her to bed at night. At her age, she still puts the beers away, although, she's slowing down a bit on the drink. She still plays cards five days a week, goes to church twice weekly, gets her hair done every Friday and almost keeps up with our generation of drinkers. I can keep up with none of them anymore.... nor do I attempt.

I call her the Bionic Grandma. She's the first person in her family to live past fifty years old. I'm not sure how much of is has to do with her nerves of steel or how much of it has to do with modern medical technology. She's been widowed since 88. We lost my Pop to lung and liver cancer. It was only when he was diagnosed with severe emphysema that my Nan, reluctantly, gave up smoking cigarettes.

She had a brain annurism at forty, lost a breast from cancer at forty eight, had a stroke at fifty-five and then several heart attacks to follow, including a quadruple by-pass surgery and about a dozen stents (I kid you not) strategically placed throughout her body, holding her arteries open for blood flow. Still, once a week she drives across the bridge to the Arby's drive-through where she orders a half dozen Arbies roast beef sandwhich (with the special sauce) and keeps them in her refridgerator for daily lunches. She does what she wants.

She was almost eighteen when my grandfather first saw her. He came back to town for a homecoming football game and she, Lenore, was a cheerleader. They "courted" (I can only imagine what that means) for a year or two before my pop, Trevor, enlisted for WWII. He got whisked away to England where he helped load children onto trains to get them out of the city. Lenore became very bored without her suitor and so enlisted herself. On their military breaks, they would meet up where they could....France, Italy, Greece... and, upon arriving home, they were married. For those Grateful Dead fans, it was a real, live Reuben & Cherisse.

There have been times in the past summer or two, after an afternoon of margaritas or daquaris, where she'll proceed to tell me (because she knows I'm receptive to such things) that she occasionally wakes in the morning to find Trevor or her mother sitting in the chair beside her bed. She tells me that she knows she's ready to go but every time she makes her peace with it, our family plans one more event.... a graduation, a wedding, a reunion... and then she knows she just has to hold out for that one more thing. Every time I come for a visit and then hug and kiss her goodbye, I wonder if she'll still be there when I come next.

I wonder how many more years she's got of holding out for that one more thing.

More Highway Lines

Heading back to the hometown this afternoon after I pick Ella up from school. The car is packed, the christmas presents are wrapped, and the cell phone is charged. It takes seven hours to get there, maybe a bit more with the two or so stops we make along the way. For some reason, Ella is particularly drawn to a specific rest stop on the New York Thru-Way. It's one of those gargantuan stops that only sell Mobile gas. I'm not a big fan or advocate of anything big and conglomerate but if I am going to drink a cup of coffee on the drive, I'm as guilty as the next one for being a patron of Starbucks. And this gargantuan stop has a Starbucks. It also has an Elby's Big Boy, TCBY, Wendy's and a great sunglass stand. I don't know why she prefers this stop to others. There's a great little deli we used to go to in Saratoga and a little breakfast joint in Glenns Falls but she prefers the box store rest stop. The corporate toilet. Life's little pleasures.

It will be a quick trip to the parent's house. My mom is turning sixty on Sunday. My dad will follow suit soon in March. They've known eachother since elementary school, dated in fourth grade (whatever that means when you're nine years old....) and grew up in relatively the same neighborhood. Their lives are so very intertwined at this stage of the game that it's nearly impossible to imagine one without the other. That's not to say it's all roses. I think I've mentioned in prior posts how the dynamic goes. It's not easy. My mom is fairly high strung, hyper-senstive and controlling. If my dad's blood pressure were any lower than it is now, he'd probably slip into a coma. He doesn't say much, has a cute little chuckle, a mustache and levels at 5'2". I'm an inch taller than the both of them.

My mom is a Capricorn redhead who grew enormous boobs by fifth grade and used to beat up Gracey, the neighboorhood girl who used to taunt her younger brother and sister. My dad used to cyphon gasoline out of cars with his buddies and steal returnables to cash in for beer in junior high. He got sent home in the second grade with a note from his teacher, asking if he had a bladder problem because he was asking to go to the bathroom so often. He was smoking cigarettes. (which may explain the lack of height?)

My mom and her mother (now 87 years old) are not speaking to eachother right now. My mom is the only sibling who still lives in the hometown with her mother and I know the lack of distance has made it hard for them. They're such different people. My grandmother is active and independent. When my pop went off to WWII in 1939, my nan got bored without him and enlisted. She's just like that. She does what she wants to, when she wants to and that tendency has only been exacerbated with old age. My mom has always acted out of obligation, family priority and guilt. She has a golden heart but in making so many sacrifices (most of them unnecessary) she's acquired a steely kind of resentment for my grandmother. Their issues are decades old and won't likely be resolved within my nan's lifetime.

It's always a ride for me to go back home. To walk back through the tunnel of family history, to look back on my own tunnel and see where the grass has grown over the cement walkways and then where the cement is still drying. Every time I go home, it's like I lean over that wet cement and leave my handprint. The little girl elongates, expands her vocabulary, shifts her perspective. I find I'm becoming the adult in conflicts, the peace-keeper. The only one in the family who understands what an "I-statement" is. By leaving, I'm able to look at my mother as a woman. A human. Not the mother who still desperately holds onto that role. By coming home, I'm able to put it all into practice. The more handprints I leave in the cement, the better the practice gets.

I grew up thinking one thing about my grandmother and now, as an adult, I see otherwise. When I have conflict with my own mom, I don't share it with Ella. Her relationship with my mom is not my relationship. My mom is not the same person to her that she is to me and for that, I'm grateful. It's allowed to me step back and see the value in not tainting another's perspective. I'm sure I will, at some point throughout the weekend, play mediator. I hope I can do it gracefully.

Family waters are thick. Kind of like cement. I think I'll wear my mudboots.