To Memories

I just got off the phone with my Nana....

I'm saying this now, because I feel so desperately morbid and serene at the same time: I think my grandmother might die tomorrow.

She's only having surgery on her knee, just a pin. ("only". "just". These are words I use to trick the commonplace-ness of "surgery" into the forefront of my mind, where it's fat ass will sit on "death" and "death" will squnch down in between the couch cushions and be utterly silenced.) She fell getting out of bed last week, her whittled 87-year old bones performing a graceful fracture around her kneecap.

We spoke tonight because my mother called. I muted the tv because I wanted to feign sleep when I answered because I was not in the mood to speak with her. My mother's voice was tight and fluttery, apologetic and jumpy in the way she gets when she hears in my voice that I'm not in the mood to talk. I'm bitchy with my mother and I love her all the more for taking it. My mother, however - before I'm nailed to the wall for mother-hating - is the absolute first to admit that she can be overbearing. This is a woman that wants to talk everyday. Sometimes multiple times a day. We're talking sometimes 3 or more days a week with the multiples lately. And it's fine, and some days I don't pick up the phone at all and she knows why and is okay with that because lack of love is not the issue; she raised an independent woman, what the hell is she supposed to say?

She told me that I might try to call Nana tonight because it was getting late and she'd be leaving for surgery at 7 tomorrow morning. And I might want to call, "just in case. You know, just in case she dies."

Just sayin'.

And I thank her for calling, but don't acknowledge the death comment because really, an unspecified portion of my life is spent not encouraging her morbid nature. A flappable mother has to have an unblinking daughter. I have beat myself into this stone version of me. It's okay.

So I call Nana and she feigns sleepiness, but being the beautifully gracious social baronness that she is, I got her on the subjects of the poker games she's been playing, the Spanish she's been learning from her nurses and attendants, and the Spanish song accompanied by languid hand movements, "almost like an Hawaiian hula dance, the way the hips and hands go. You put your hands out in front of you, palms down, sway them back and forth and then bring them up behind your head, one at a time. So pretty." No, Nana, you are so pretty, your lovely words and prose peppered in among the daily recounts of life. Your love of journalism permeates everything you talk about, from the quail that runs through the aisles of the Wal-Mart in town that you think should be in the newspaper, to the way you ask questions of everyone you meet and talk to, no matter if it's the first or 30th time you've been with them.

You told me tonight that seven years ago it was I who called you the morning of September 11, 2001, asked you if you had seen the news, to turn on your tv now then, look, Nana, look. That's your Pentagon, that's your New York City, that's your country that you've fought for, worked for, loved for, slaved for. And you love it. The Air Force runs in your blood, you run hot with it even now. And I feel so oddly blessed to have been able to give you the news that morning. It's not often I can connect on a patriotic level with a woman that has seen so much, been so much, been alive and working in the bowels of the Pentagon, pictures and newspaper stories humming between her fingers. The unbelievable energy....

I think it was the fear in her voice that got me a little worried. We didn't want to get off the phone; we tried to three or four times and we just couldn't do it. That unknown of "will I ever hear your voice again?" hung so unspoken, yet so heartfelt between us. We promised that I would call her tomorrow after I got out of class, because she should be in her room and resting post-op by then. And it felt good to know that we each knew the other was being strong for the other, and it was good to share the company of such a strong female. Very proud moment for us both, I like to think.

And as I told her I should let her go so she could get some rest, she interrupted with, "Devon, I just want you to know how proud of you I am." Tears sprang to my eyes and I managed to choke out how much that meant to me. She choked up, too, and mumbled something about how she was happy to hear that, and then we both said a quick love you and goodbye and hung up.




I felt compelled to write this this evening. Maybe just to get it out of me that my Nana means everything to me. I feel so much like her at times...I am blessed beyond belief to share a gene pool with this woman.

So here's to a safe knee surgery, Nana. You're going to be awesome no matter what, 'cause that's just the way it is with you. (and thank God for that)

I love you. Talk to you soon. ~ Dev