The Great Grandma Escape

My grandmother had a stroke last Sunday. On Tuesday I went to visit her. They had moved her from the hospital back to Cathedral Village, the retirement community she's called her home for the past ten years. Only, she wasn't home. They took her to Bishop White Lodge, which is pretty much just a hospital within the community. I think they mean it to be nicer for the elderly, a place where they know the people in the rooms next to them and can be easily visited by family and friends. For my grandmother, it's only a tease--so close to home and yet, so far. I walked into her room to find her sitting in a chair reading. She looked so calm and normal, as though nothing had happened and it was all just another day. She was wearing a beautiful Indian gown that looked like something I would wear out on a Friday night. She said she didn't like the way the gown they'd assigned her ruffled against the unwelcoming bed. It made a dreadful noise. I think though, her disgust with the gown stemmed from her endless strives to follow her own heart, to not conform to a world of cookie cutter paper gowns.

That is just like my grandmother. The older I get, the more I can see myself in her, understand where I come from. She seems to become younger and more alert every time I see her. Her memory is beginning to slip, but she knows it and laughs at herself for it. I hope I'm like that when I'm 85. When she woke up in the hospital, she was sure she was 42. "Such an arbitrary number" she said, "but I really believed it. I really thought I was 42. Sometimes I still do." We all laughed. “So do I,” my father commented in agreement. “You know,” she began again without skipping a beat, “the nice thing about losing your memory is that it doesn’t bother you at all. It may annoy other people, but to hell with them, you won’t remember they’re annoyed in a little while anyway.” I laughed.

My grandfather called the room to say hello. He got on the phone with me and excitedly rambled on and on about the article he had been reading in the Times about Bonnaroo. “They say it’s just like a modern day Woodstock!” He exclaimed excitedly. “I’m glad you went and embraced your hippie roots. What a good experience!” Keep in mind these are my grandparents. At 85 and 89, you can’t help but gush over them when they make such youthful comments like that.

Nor can you help completely adore my grandmother as she begins telling you about her escapes from Bishop White Lodge. When no one’s looking, she’s taken to casually walking out the back door and wandering back to her apartment where my grandfather happily greets her. They spend some time together, eat some real, non-hospital food, until she decides that perhaps it’s time to meander back to her doctors. She must drive the nurses out of their minds, but it’s hard to imagine anyone staying upset with her for more than a few minutes (well, with the exception of my mother maybe). She went on and on about how they couldn’t hold her. She was 85 and demanded freedom and respect. My stomach hurt from laughing with her. She’s so crazy. I hope I’m just like her.

At idle moments during my day I think of her, slipping out the back door like a burglar, sneaking through the corridors past walkers and wheelchairs and canes (oh my!), making her way back to her loved one, making her way back home. The great Grandma escape. I think of her, and smile.