Times Change

Last year my Grandmother had a stoke.
I thought she was going to die. My family thought she was going to die. She was convinced she was going to die.
I was leaving for England soon, and I didn't think I'd see her when I returned. So when my mom volunteered for me to stay over with her for a few nights to keep her company during winter break, I didn't mind.

She'd come home from the hospital a different person.
This woman, who was fond of smacking asses and calling me a "sexpot" and sped like a maniac at 88 years old, was now a ghost, a walking shell of a person. A bag of loose skin and faded eyes and varicose veins that wrapped around her legs like vines.

She sat on her couch all day wrapped in blankets, staring at the television but not actually watching it.
I would sit beside her and dutifully clip her Sunday coupons like she'd done her whole life.
Dove shampoo, overpriced cat food, McDonald's breakfasts.

I liked to touch her hands.
I'd marvel at how beautiful they remained even with the skin so lose on the bones it felt like it'd just slide right off.
She never took off her rings, the bands of diamonds and rubies she'd been given decades before when she was young and pretty.
I'd put my hand beside hers and wonder if I'd ever reach the age in which my skin was no longer flesh-colored but a swirl of purples and blues. If I'd have a granddaughter with young and healthy hands I'd envy.

At night she would recline her chair and I'd sleep in her bed.
This huge bed- man, I loved it. King sized, I could fit four of me in it comfortably.
It smelled like her: that comforting smell I'd known all my life but never really noticed until I was wrapped in it and clinging on to it, knowing that someday I wouldn't remember it.

But the bed was too big. It wasn't meant for one person.
She'd been sleeping alone in it for 12 years.

Her husband used to take up some of the space- that giver of her rings, they had bought this bed and that couch and built this house. Together.
and then he'd died, and she was left with a too-big bed and a diamond ring that didn't sparkle like it used to.

I knew she slept on the left side so I slept on the right, hoping to undo some of the 12 years of iniquity.
But in the morning I'd wake up on the left-- maybe her body had formed a gully, a ravine in the mattress that held her there on the left side and captured me as well.

I wonder what it was like- that change to sleeping alone. When she'd slept with him beside her for so long, but now his side was cold and clean and didn't smell like him.
I wonder if it pulled her under, but she let it.

In the cold mornings I'd make coffee and eggs and force her to take small bites even though she'd screw up her face like an angry toddler.
She used to cook for me, and now I for her.
Change.

I asked her questions I'd never cared about before: what high school was like, her first love, her first kiss, her relationship with her sisters.
And she'd tell me. Her speech was slow and the those memories were covered with dust because no one had asked her in so long.

When I left for England I told her I'd call her, and I did. I told her what I saw from my window and how bad the food was and how much I missed feeding the squirrels together while drinking coffee on winter mornings.
She'd tell me to not miss her.
Go have fun, she'd say.


Despite her predictions, I did see her months later when I returned.
We clip coupons and go for breakfast and watch birds.
I am changing but she is not, and that's ok.
Maybe she's had enough change for one lifetime.