Still Hanging in There ...

I was snooping around my brother Donald's flickr site and filched this picture of my grandmother, Thelma (he and I aren't on speaking terms right now). He took it right after Christmas, I think. I can't believe she's still hanging in there after everything she's been through. At first when we spoke on Christmas, she was disoriented, but gradually she snapped out of it. Then, she told me she was visited by my aunt, my mother, and my brother over the Christmas holiday. She said she was sad because she can't do anything any longer. Still trying to take care of everyone after all these years in a convalescence home ...

She's so cute ... and I miss her so much!

Totem Trouble

I went into great detail here on how my totem animal is the spider and what it means to me. So, it is highly significant when I see a spider, where I see a spider, and what the spider might be trying to tell me, right? Well, after spending a lovely lunch hour with Leslie and my grandmother at the Regency House just down I-91, I was back in my office at work. One of the girls that sits down the hall was passing by and STOMPed her foot right in the opening to my space! She killed an enormous black spider (I mean, large and fuzzy, the size of a quarter) just as it was marching in here to give me a message! I asked her to stop so I could see what it looked like, and trust me, it was a big sisterfriend alright.

What was it trying to tell me before meeting its most untimely demise?

My phone rings and its Leslie (it's always Leslie). She's racing around town doing errands in between dropping me off, and dropping off Elizabeth, and picking us up etc. And she tells me she is convinced Thelma knows we're going to leave Connecticut. What? First, Thelma was adamant that she didn't see Edwina last night, and Wina was there (like she always is) by 6:00pm every Sunday evening. You could set your watch against it. Granted, the old girl gets a painkiller in the evening, but it doesn't do much more than afford her a mild buzz. She also knows Wina and I aren't on speaking terms really, right now. When Wina is there, she is always talking on the phone to her older sister (Thelma's oldest daughter), Barbara Jean aka Bob. And thinking Thelma doesn't listen, she blabs about everything (as Thelma takes concise mental notes and begins processing forthwith). Then, over lunch today, Thelma went to great lengths to tell me she understood the Regency was her home, and she has friends there, and sure, she gets scared sometimes, but she's doing just fine. She tells me she has a lot in head and sometimes it gets going very fast. I mean, she has been thinking about it, and was telling me her thoughts in ernst! My 87 year old, demented grandmother gave me a real talking to. Throughout lunch she was chatting with people, having conversations, eating everything on her plate, and what's more, not complaining. AKA going to great lengths to demonstrate everything in her world is just fine, okey doke, no problemo, seniorita.

It went careening directly over my head.

Then, the spider got squished.

And then Leslie called me and gave me the spider's message.

Grandmother Spider come a'calling to give me a message about my grandmother.

But still ... it couldn't be good when your totem animal gets squished.

Note: The photo above is my grandmother and I in 1964 on Reed Street, the first apartment my parents lived in when they got married.

Dear Ma ...

Well, here it is April and it’s absolutely pouring outside. Once again, the backyard is beginning to flood, and Jack regularly tracks muddy footprints into the house from the backyard, as Daizy dances spastic little rings around him … always watching, always watching, she is. The mud is one of the things I won’t miss when we leave this place.

As a matter of fact, I want to make a record of the things we’ll miss and the things we won’t miss. So if, like, in another 20 years Leslie and I get impulsive, we’ll have something to look back on instead of finding out, again, in person that this place isn’t for us. Like, we’ll miss Dunkin’ Donuts. I love that place. And all the pasta choices on the shelves. I don’t know whether to cook them or make Christmas ornaments out of them instead. I’ll definitely miss the beef, which is a rainbow of taste compared to California steak. We’ll miss the terrific garbage guys who’ll take anything you leave for them (in California they were so particular … it was a struggle), if not some things you don’t want them to take (true garbage pickers at heart, these guys). We WON’T miss the angry, miserable people or the crazy drivers, or the cost of oil, and the depressed job market. The education system here is inadequate and combined with the mean people, the mean children; it is the equivalent of stomping on a growing garden, our daughter being one of its most vibrant flowers. I’d like to keep her vibrant, thank you. The cons outweigh the pros.

Also of paramount importance is the way Leslie struggles here … I didn’t really understand it until I read up on her Pisces Moon. The website Aquarius Papers said that having a Pisces Moon makes one particularly sensitive to the collective consciousness. Leslie and I have discussed this, and she tells me it’s like wading through sewage. It’s made being here particularly difficult for her. She despises this place. I think that if she didn’t have the dogs following her around, guarding her, loving her, piling up on top of her every moment that she is home, it would be worse. But still, it isn’t good.

Ma has given me such a grand opportunity. She’s given me time to sew up loose ends from the past. Well, not all are sewn up, but many, many are. The ones that weighed on me for years and years – my mother, my brothers, my aunts – Amma gave me the opportunity to dance the dance with them and put my past to rest so it no longer burdens me. The brain space is open and available for new experiences, new lessons. Ma has shown me so much about myself here. I went to her in New York a year ago asking for help with my job search, which she verbally acknowledged (“I will help you with this,” she said, “You need a good job.”) and so she plopped me down on an enormous campus that’s only one exit away from where my grandmother lives. It’s where the Blue Heron stares at me each morning when we drive in. After being gone all winter, the Heron is actually back. We saw him the day before yesterday. Definitely a marker … kicking it up a notch, Ma?

Leaving … sigh. Leaving this state leaves me having to face my feelings. And I would much rather side step them or have it all work out neatly on its own. Yes, that would be nice.

I don’t think it will this time.

We’re only a few weeks away from putting this house up for sale, and despite the soft market, I know that when we put this place up it will go quickly. Leslie has used her magic so it now it looks so beautiful. She uses that Piscean magic, the kind that people just have. She doesn’t even see it as magic. It’s just part of who she is. The house doesn’t like us very much, it never has. But it’s had quite the face lift and is feeling fine. I’m hoping that when we start packing we’ll find the numerous articles that have disappeared, the least of which isn’t the $4,000 heirloom ring that Leslie’s father left her. She put it down somewhere weeks ago, and we’ve not seen it since. The house ate it. We are lightening our load of material things considerably, having learned lessons about big houses and material baggage. Okay, Ma, we got that. Yes, even Leslie, my double Taurus, received that message loud and clear. And Elizabeth is ready to leave her school. Despite the age, and despite her friends, she is ready to move on, our agile little Aries Child. She blows me away. What did she say to me last night? She took my hand and said, “Nana, try to be more patient with me, ok?” I promised her I would.

But what about my grandmother?

What about Thelma, Ma? Who will watch over her when I leave? My mother couldn’t care less and even Edwina seems content to do the minimum. The rest home she’s in is a good one, but it doesn’t even attempt to cater to the emotional needs of its residents. And I’m convinced that it is our presence that makes Thelma’s aides pay closer attention. When we’re gone for more than a few days, Thelma goes back to being in her own world, and things get lax. When we see her, she is attentive, connects with us, wants to talk, eat together, and enjoys us. Who else will be here to make sure her care is appropriate? Who will ensure her transition from the hospital is a smooth one? Who will make sure her pain medicine is administered on time?

Who will take care of my grandmother when I’m gone?!

Don’t tell me … I know the answer already.

I wonder if my presence makes Thelma reluctant to let go. Could this be the case? Of course, it can. And so she remains here suffering because she thinks there is nothing else? Who knows what contract she made entering into this life. This breaks my heart. It breaks my heart that she will be alone again when I am gone, even though I know that I have little to do with her spiritual journey. I know that her lessons are her own, and while our presence here brought her from her personal darkness for a time so she could enjoy her great grand-daughter, my inner voice keeps telling me that perhaps it is time to leave her to her maker.

How can that be?

I feel like I should be here with her, after everything she has done for me. I’m having so much trouble reconciling the guilt I feel with the higher purposes, most of which are muddy. This becomes a matter of trust, I know. Trust in the Divine Mother.

I asked Amma months ago, when I was struggling with the decision to leave, if I was to stay or go. She shortly thereafter made it obvious to me that the needs and well being of my immediate family are more important that my own desires. And even so, more important than my grandmother’s will. And if I’ve learned nothing from my time here with the old girl its’ that when the grim reaper comes knocking, Thelma’s issues are with her daughters, not with me. Maybe my presence keeps them away. Maybe when I leave, they will get closer. I hope so. Because the thought of my grandmother rotting away all alone is truly more than I can bear.

I can’t see the pattern yet.

And so I am left to trust Amma.

I put Amma’s picture up on the wall in Thelma’s room. One of the aids in her room, a Hindu woman, asked me who it was.

Please Ma, ease this pain.

Take care of my grandmother, ok?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, THELMA!

An All American Beauty!

Thelma Marine Pascal
March 19, 2008
87 years old

My Grandmother
"Spitting the Grim Reaper Right in the Face!"

The Grim Reaper Strikes Out

This Mercury Retrograde wouldn’t be complete without a visit from the Grim Reaper, although once again he left with only his dick in his hands. At work, my staff are very compassionate and know my grandmother is sick. I said in passing to my Receiving supervisor, “Why does she allow herself to be in torment like this? Why doesn’t she just let go?!” And Duane looked at me like I had lobsters coming out of my ears. “Because she wants to LIVE like the rest of us!” he exclaimed, offering a reality check that shined a light on how different I am from the people I work with. I don’t believe that death is the end. I believe it is a transition. What’s important, however, is what my grandmother believes, and she’s a die-hard atheist. The old broad has always said, “Heaven and hell are right here on earth – there’s a little bit of heaven and a whole lot of hell!” She, like her oldest daughter, believes that after death there is nothing, and so, for better or for worse, this life is the only shot they’ve got.

Last week, my grandmother, Thelma, went back to the hospital for a serious infection caused by chronic and inoperable kidney stones. She’s almost 87, and it was the second time in the last three months, too. About two weeks ago, a respiratory thing went through her rest home like wildfire and it left Thelma’s immune system depressed (Notice to Visitors: If you aren’t feeling well, rethink your visit, please). The infection reared up, this time presenting with a new kind of bacteria. Her nurse, Joyce, the one that can communicate with her and read her well, was on vacation. The home’s doctor prescribed a wide spectrum antibiotic that did nothing, and by the end of that week, she was too sick and confused to take any of her pills no matter which pool nurse was talking too loudly in her face. When she got to the emergency room, she was dehydrated, dirty, seemingly uncared for, making no sense whatsoever, and very, very sick. She even had open sores on her shins where the shin socks had rubbed through (telling me she fought the rest home staff who tried to help or clean her – her skin is very thin, easily torn – and she despises when people mess with her feet or legs more than anything).



The sicker Thelma gets, the more difficult Thelma gets. By this time, she was spitting at people (hit the bull’s-eye, mommy), an undignified behavior that she would deny were she better, although it does encourage people to leave her alone. I guess in a way, it serves it purpose.



As per usual, it took two days for her bacteria culture to return from the lab. This is how they’ll know what specific antibiotic to administer. During those two days, and for some idiotic reason, hospital staff continued to struggle with Thelma and oral medication, which resulted in her getting no medication at all for her stomach, pain, arthritis or anything else. Those pills were being fired all around her hospital room (p-too!). By Wednesday, she wasn’t just in a state, ranting, chanting and worried; she had achieved a completely new plateau of freaked out. She was in anguish this time, beyond mere torment, crying with real tears, and was absolutely inconsolable, as she was back in November. She wanted her mother. She was worried she was a bad girl. She wanted to go home. She didn’t want to die. When the nurse gave her a derivative of morphine, I watched my grandmother fight that medication tooth and nail because she was sure she would die if she fell asleep. This is a demonstration of incredible will and sure fire fear. At one point Wednesday night I asked her, “Are you scared?” and she answered, “Scared shitless.”


There was my grandmother, called “Mam” by her grandchildren, under all that muttered misery, the thread of her consciousness still visible, although the hospital staff just put dementia on her chart. She’d claimed the word “shit” as hers long before I was born. I stood there at her bedside, stroking her forehead, trying to catch a bit of what she said through the cluttered muck of her muttering, and I watched her wage a spiritual war with herself.

I wonder … maybe it was the Grim Reaper come to visit, with his long black cloak, the scythe at his side, worrying Thelma with promises of darkness and bleak finality, whether or not she thought the job was well done or even complete. Maybe it was He who made her tired, draining her life’s spark with his empty, skull socket eyes and downloading what was left of her kidneys. Perhaps it was the threat of his final vow that had her so terribly frightened. Who are we to say what it was had her so upset … after all, it is her beliefs that shape her experience.

I know what I saw, though. And I know my grandmother.

Thelma, in her pain and confusion, was distilled once again by the onslaught of her illness. She was a little girl, calling out to her mother, and afraid that she had been bad. She’d never been bad to me. She’s never, ever done me wrong. She took me in when I needed refuge, supported my creative endeavors, and made sure I had skills to fall back on.

No, it’s not her grandchildren she cries about.

Thelma cries for her own children, and needs to know she is forgiven. It is the call of the blood that makes her cry out, makes her reluctant to let go. Crippled by the depth of guilt she feels for every single mistake each of her three daughters has ever made, Thelma raged all night long in her anguish. She didn’t sleep. She never stopped crying out.



I wonder if my grandmother’s three daughters will release her from this anguish when she calls for it again. Each time she gets these horrible infections, she comes a bit closer to her end game. I’d say Thelma came pretty damn close this time, judging by how upset she was.

But as I’ve said many times, I don’t come from kind people. My Aunt in Georgia, Thelma’s oldest daughter, is academically brilliant but has suffered incredible loss of her own. It almost broke her heart and her spirit beyond repair. The anger she feels for her mother, and the overwhelming guilt she feels herself, is barely held in check. My mother, the middle daughter, is the one who made the most tangible mistakes, and if you asked her, she would say that Thelma decided early on that she was a naughty girl. She figured why not go with it, and so takes responsibility for nothing. The youngest of the three has a more perfected veneer, but she is the closest geographically and concurrently the most reluctant to let go.



As if by magic, Thelma woke up Friday morning in her hospital bed, completely clear eyed and absolutely starving. Leslie and I stopped at the hospital before I went to work. Her nurse, Ethel, was absolutely floored. The Come Back Kid had done it again. The power of Thelma’s sudden recovery made converts of the hospital staff around her, and Leslie and I watched in amazement as they all chattered and ran around to get whatever Thelma asked for. When it was time to take her pills, though, Thelma started to argue, because, after all, old habits die hard. It was Leslie who got her attention.

“Thelma,” my Leslie said, “do you want to die?”

“No, of course not!”

“Then you have to take your pills,” Leslie gave me the eye. “If you don’t take your pills, you’ll die in seven days!”

I heard the nurse gasp in the hallway.

The truth hurts, and at times it is the way we communicate that truth that penetrates the thick skulls of those we love. I know this from first hand experience. Thelma needed to hear the truth, and even though it was a little skewed, she got the message. I even caught her rolling her eyes.

Yep, the Grim Reaper had struck out this time.

The old broad was back ... again.