Now I Understand...

I've been thinking about my grandmother today. About both of my grandparents a little bit. About our times visiting Iowa. But a lot about my grandmother.

When I was little we would visit Iowa every August. Prime weather, August in Iowa, let me tell you. But we would go and see my mother's family every year. We also drove. So a LONG time in the car. No hotel stops. We would leave Albuquerque really early like 3 or 4 AM and my dad would drive the whole 20 or so hour trip with us only stopping for gas, restroom visits, and food.

In Iowa we'd stay on my grandparent's farm. There was almost always some project waiting. Fences that needed repairing, hay and feed laid in for the winter, maybe something at Reese's (my Aunt Dorothy's husband) farm that needed help. One memorable year Dad, Jeff, Reese, Dale and Richard (Dorothy's kids) dug out the overfull septic tank. I'm not sure where they put all the shit they dug out but it was wheelbarrows full of it, and days and days of digging it out. At the end they put all of their clothes in a barrel and burned them. The smell was intense the whole time, digging through burning.

Looking back those trips couldn't have ever been much of a vacation for Dad. He was working the whole time we were there. But we still did it. Every year until Grandpa died. Just Mom, Dad and I went back the next year to pick up somethings that Mom had claimed and haul those back to New Mexico. That trip we did stay in hotels. We did a lot of travel, went to visit some of Dad's family on the way up to Iowa, took a slower time coming home than we would have normally because hauling the U-haul trailer made for slower going and harder driving than Dad really wanted to tackle at one time.

They were supposed to have a closed trailer for us at the U-haul place but didn't so we ended up with an open trailer. The good news is it didn't rain the whole drive back, the bad was the relentless sun blistered the finish on the curio cabinet and other pieces. I can remember Mom saying that we'd just have to refinish them all. The curio cabinet is in my brother Jeff's house right now and if you were to go look at it you'd still see the little circles where the finish blistered off. Yeah, it was never refinished. Everyone just got used to the damage. It added charm.

After my grandfather died, and after that one trip back to pick things up, Grandma started to come to New Mexico in August to visit us, and to give Aunt Dorothy a bit of a break since she now lived with her. I'm not sure anyone ever asked Grandma if she wanted to spend August in New Mexico. Also prime weather, but at least not as humid. Grandma had reached that age where her daughters started treating her as one of their children instead of as their mother.

I can remember when we were in Iowa before Grandpa died and Mom took Grandma to the beauty salon. They pulled her hair out of its net and it cascaded down to her waist. Long gray hair. I had had no idea that much hair was tucked up in her net every day. Dorothy and Mom had decided that she should cut it and perm it, the way they both were wearing their hair at the time. That way she wouldn't have to find the time to wash it once a week. She wouldn't have to roll it up and put it in the net every morning. She wouldn't have to unwind it, brush it, braid it, and put it all in her sleeping cap every night. It would be "wash and wear" easy peasy.

I can remember Grandma saying she looked like Little Orphan Annie got old when it was all done. I can also remember her reaching up and touching it a lot. Trying to run her fingers through it only to have it be way too short for much running. What I can't remember is if she liked it. Or if they had even asked her if that's what she wanted before they did it. But from that point on her hair was short and permed into a tight curl.

When Grandpa died Mom and Dorothy decided that Grandma would live with Dorothy and Reese at their farm. Their house had an area they could convert into a sort of guest wing. She'd have her own room and bathroom, it was off the kitchen so she'd have access to that space easily as well. The farm she and Grandpa lived at and ran would be sold. She would take a few pieces of furniture to Dorothy's place and then Dorothy and Mom would take what they wanted, Dorothy's kids and Annie's (Mom's eldest sister) kids would take anything they wanted and the rest could be sold with the farm.

Again, I have no idea if that's what Grandma wanted. I can imagine she would have rather moved in with her best friend Fairy. I am not even sure if after she moved to Dorothy's place if she ever made the drive back out to LeRoy to see her. I do know that when she was visiting us she did what Mom decided she would do. Susan and I had the prime responsibility of taking care of her during the day. Which the first few years wasn't bad, she mainly wanted to watch her shows, maybe go out to lunch, as her dementia got worse and worse the caretaking became a harder job. The last year she was there, Susan wasn't living at home so it was all on me. Friends of mine (Brent was one, but we weren't dating yet, just friends) would come and get me and take me for a coke at McDonald's just so I could get an hour out of the house once a week or so. That handful of trips to McDonald's that last August meant the world to me.

But again, I have no idea what my grandmother actually wanted. She was lost in her own mind by that point. And even before that Dorothy and Mom had taken over her decisions.

I hadn't ever really thought about it from her point of view until recently. What it must have been like when the shift happened. When they stopped deferring to her and started dictating to her. If at the beginning she thought that maybe she and Grandpa maybe shouldn't have favored Annie so much over the other two girls when she was alive. If she would have done that differently if she had realized it would be Dorothy and Mom deciding her later years. Though probably not, knowing Annie would die young probably would have made it even worse.

Looking back at it now, I can imagine how frustrating it must have been for her. At least at the start. By the end everything was frustrating to her and I don't think anything Mom or Aunt Dorothy was doing made it better or worse. At the time I didn't get it. I resented having to take care of her, she wasn't my mother, it wasn't my decision for her to come to New Mexico, Mom should be the one to have to bathe her and clean her up and all of the things that come with taking care of a woman with advanced dementia. At the time I was only a teenager and didn't really have the empathy needed to see the world from her point of view.

Now I can understand. I can see that when Grandpa died and the girls took over it probably seemed a blessing at first. Then as they exerted more and more control over everything it probably got really annoying. Then as she lost more and more of her contact with reality it probably got a little scary at times. I understand her a lot more now than I did then. I'm not mad at teenage me for lacking that empathy, but I do have it now.

Last little bits: after Grandpa died and the August Iowa trips stopped we mostly went to Colorado or Northern New Mexico and rode old fashioned steam trains and went to cowboy dinners. I'm guessing that Dad got to choose all of the trips for a long stretch to balance things out.

And yes, I wrote this instead of the "one year down" post I could have written. I might still write that this week, but I think all it would be is AND ANOTHER THING. Because there have been so many things this past year. But we are here. Still here. And that counts for a lot. Keep holding on, keep looking for the good things. We made it through the first year.