Not Ready to Say Goodbye

I spent Sunday with my grandmother; I spend every Sunday with her. When I talked to her mid-week she told me her physical therapist took her on a walk. I arrived Sunday afternoon in the mist of a beautiful spring day, the sun was shinning, the snow melted and it was a warm 70 F. I love the summer, I love the sun, I am of the garden variety and can only grow when the sun shines and the weather is warm. I suggested a walk to my grandmother, and she accepted. She has never been able to refuse me anything, and it has worked to my advantage more than once. She held onto her Hugo and we started on our walk. We walked to the end of her retirement community and then started back. Half way back she faltered, our walk nearly exhausted her. We had to stop and I thought, oh $hit I have put my grandmother at risk for a fall. When we reached the common area she had to sit down for 30 minutes before she had the strength to return to her apartment.

I don’t know when it happened, and I don’t know how I missed it, but my grandmother has gotten really old. I see her every week, and it just kind of surprised me. I kept thinking that she was going to bounce back from age and come home. I kept seeing her as the constant in my future children’s life like she was the constant in my life. Right then and there I realized that I am not ready to let go of her, and I don’t have a lifetime to say goodbye to her. Now I can’t help but feel bad for all the times I pulled away from her when she wanted me to hold her hand while we walked through the store. Or the times I wouldn’t kiss her goodbye when she dropped me off at dance practice. All those little unkind things from me and never once was she late picking me up afterwards.

A few weeks ago we talked about me and my terrible teenaged ways, I reminded her of our mornings together. I am not a morning person, not then and not now, and she is a morning person. Every morning I would stagger into the kitchen all grim and gruff and she would be talking 8 million words a minute. It was all I could do not to strangle her; I did bite her head off from time to time. She would have my morning juice ready for me, strained because I hated pulp and they didn’t sell pulp free (my age is showing). I would drink my juice, take my vitamins and my grandfather would take me to school, in silence which I needed. We talked about that, she remembered the juice, the vitamins, the ride but not that I was bear in the morning. I hope now that it is close to the end of my time with her that she only remembers the good times.