Kids

"Having kids was the hardest thing I ever did in my life," she told me one afternoon when I was visiting. She was in a mood, and when she was like this, anything could come out of her mouth. The nursing home staff and practically everyone else called it dementia, where she concocted some incredible stories or scenarios that I am pretty sure she believed at the time. My favorite was the one where my older brother married an Indian and either moved into a teepee or lived on the streets of Calcutta. (She had been to the latter on a tour, and occasionally raved with privileged American Christian disbelief at the state of living.) Of course, as my brother was extremely involved in his own complicated life, he hadn’t been to see her for years. Despite my mother’s keeping her regularly updated on the health and activities of all her children, the absence of presence encouraged Grandma’s imagination to create any scenario that suited its fancy in the moment. She also held onto the stories and scenarios like memories, because she would repeat them later, when she was in another of her moods. And when she wasn’t, she would sometimes pause, struggle in her mind for a moment and double-check just what was reality. “Now, your brother’s going to college, right?” she’d inquire, just to be sure.

Her imagination, her stories, her dreams, even her ravings had to be incredible. When I think of her life—all that she lived—her imagination had to be big and broad, if only to achieve equal footing with her real life. It’s one thing for someone who went to high school, married, worked until kids, raised kids, joined a few garden and card clubs, devoted herself to her grandchildren, did a little travel, retired, living a life of quiet, dedicated love, full of graciousness and friendliness—for someone with that life—to dream of going to Europe or worry about an illness. It’s quite another to live the kind of adventure and even danger that my great-grandmother lived. The fears, nightmares, imaginings would need to be bigger, or they couldn’t compete with reality.

I think about this sometimes when I’m watching a play, at the movies or even reading a book. If it’s not as interesting or exciting as my own life, why should I bother? I could just live instead.

However, sometimes in the midst of some of her wildest stories, Grandma would put forth an understanding of life, experience and the human heart that would take my breath away.

In our conversation that afternoon, which included a combination of coherent give-and-take, my own rattling on to keep her interest and several outlandish understandings of her own, she started talking about her children.

She had two—a boy and a girl—with her first husband. While three of her subsequent six husbands also had children, she felt no particular connection with them. As for her own, she had a particularly stressful relationship with them.