I remember sitting in my grandmother's kitchen when I was about five years old. Two unnamed relatives came by to visit around ten on a Saturday morning. "He's still here!? Why do you always have him? He ain't your responsibility. If she didn't want any kids then she shouldn't have had him." I wish I could say that I overheard this conversation, but that would imply that the people saying this weren't standing five feet in front of me. My family never really was big on feelings.
No sooner than I could feel like shit, my grandmother revealed the big S on her chest and said, "Don't come in here talking that shit to me because I don't want to hear it. It ain't none of your damned business why he's over here. Ain't nobody ask you to keep him. I keep him because I WANT to and you if you don't like it you can get your ass out my house." (Self-esteem returning to normal)
There were many people who made me feel like I was in the way growing up, but my grandmother wasn't one of them. No matter what her plans were, I never felt like anything was more important than me. If she had something to do, then I just tagged along. Walking thirty blocks to pay the light bill? I'm going too. Sitting in choir rehearsal for 40 days and 40 nights. Me (and my transformers) too. And if she wanted to go see a movie starring "that man, uh, what his name...with all the moles on his face...Morgan Freeman!" then she wasn't gonna let a little thing like 1st Grade stop me from going with her to see Lean On Me too.
To be honest, I think a lot of my personality can be attributed to her, which is a sweet thing to say as a 31 year old. When I was 8, but still acted like this, well that was something entirely different. "You shouldn't say stuff like that around that boy. He's old enough to understand you." Her church friends always worried that my developing mind would be warped by their blunt and totally-inappropriate-for-church conversations. I knew who was sleeping with who, who was "on that stuff," and who her entire pew of cohorts felt could and could not preach "to save their damned life." But as my grandmother often retorted, "He ain't stupid enough to repeat it. It'll be the last breath he ever draws."
As I got older, our roles switched. The same person who taught me to add and subtract was asking me to add up her bills to make sure her math was right. The one who signed my permission slips was now having me look over her mail to see if I could make sense out of what "those people" were saying. And then one day the same person who used to threaten to beat me half to death if I didn't let the doctors give me a shot was now handing me a paper naming me her power of attorney for her own medical issues.
Instead of a shot to make her better, she's entrusting me to have the strength to do what she thinks her own children won't be able to do: pull the plug. Anybody else's grandmother would've had a heartfelt speech prepared. Not mine. "I'm giving it to you to do, because the rest of 'em are too fool to do it. I don't want them sittin up around me crying like a bunch of fools. Just let me die and move on." People who don't know me very well assume I have no emotions. Maybe now they understand what it was like growing up in Sparta.
So now here we are about two years later. Things aren't looking too good, and I've spent the last couple of days repeating to doctors, nurses, their witnesses and my family, my grandmother's wishes. Of course, in the moment, no one hears what she wants. They hear what I'm saying. Telling someone not to even try to revive a person if their heart stops is hard to hear. Telling them not to use a ventilator and to let them suffocate to death is also hard to hear. But trust me, as hard as it is to hear, it pales in comparison to what it feels like to say it.
So in 2013, yet again, as it was with my marriage it is with my grandmother...I love a woman so much that I have to be willing to let her go.
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