On the Loss of My Last Remaining Grandparent

I've mourned a lot of people in my life. Since 2006, I’ve lost 3 out of 4 grandparents, and last night, I lost the 4th. The first time I lost a treasured friend, I wasn't even allowed to attend his funeral because my parents' custody agreement prevented it, and my life wasn't allowed to be about me. Ever. My life was a never-ending series of sitting at my grandparents' dining room table listening to them tell me how horrible my birth mother was (she really was, as it turns out, but that's not the point at the moment), listening to my father saying how bad of a wife she’d been and how he wouldn’t let me turn out the same way, and he and his second wife doing their best to convince me that I’d be better off living with them.

Most of my favorite childhood memories involve being at my grandparents’ house, despite how they talked about my birth mother when she wasn’t around (they were plenty nice to her when she was, though.) Grandma would make sure I took a bath and brushed my teeth, and taught me to pray the rosary before I went to bed, after we watched Touched by an Angel and the evening news. It was because of this routine that I became obsessed with the music of Celine Dion and Randy Travis. After dinner, Grandpa would always remind me to help Grandma clean up the dishes and put the leftovers away while he went and stretched out in the recliner, and waited for her to pour a beer into two glasses so they could share it.

When we woke up on Sunday morning, Grandma or Grandpa would help me make both beds, and then Grandpa and I would sit at the table and wait while Grandma made Egg Beaters with a little bit of pepper, and half a slice of whole-wheat toast with Smart Balance and grape jelly. Since I was too young for coffee, I’d drink orange juice or milk instead, but I always loved the smell of Grandma and Grandpa’s coffee. I also loved watching them just sitting there across from each other; something neither my parents nor my other set of grandparents ever did. The love between the two of them was always apparent, and I loved being able to watch it.

After breakfast, Grandpa and I would sneak a Little Debbie out of the drawer while Grandma was getting dressed, and then we’d all head to church, where Grandma made sure to tell me early on that it was important to Grandpa that I learn and do everything correctly and be respectful and well-behaved in the chapel; it wasn’t until many years later that I learned that Grandma had had to sacrifice her own faith to convert to Catholicism in order to marry Grandpa, and her life from that point on became about making sacrifices whenever possible in order to keep everyone happy. I’m honestly not surprised or upset about that, because she lived through the Great Depression; life itself taught her that sacrifice was necessary, and sometimes personal happiness and fulfillment had to wait. In her case, she always projected the air that sacrificing for everyone’s happiness is what brought her happiness, and in that way, I grew to be a lot like her for a very long time.

When I was about 12 years old, Dad took me to Grandma and Grandpa’s, and a discussion was started about how much I’d weighed in at my last doctor’s appointment; 100 lbs, to be precise. My grandfather was the first person to call me fat. From then on, everything came down to my appearance, and even one of my aunts joined in at one point with a ‘Jeez, wash your face much?’ when I started getting acne. (I’ve since forgiven her, even though I’m certain she doesn’t remember this, because she was married to a toxic man herself.) My cousin stepped in and insisted that Grandma wasn't allowed to give me hand-me-downs anymore and that the type and style of clothing I wore needed to be made a priority.

I was terrified when I realized in Junior High that I didn’t believe in God. It took me 5 years after that to realize I was bisexual. Neither announcement went over well with my grandparents, even though I’d asked them both in advance if they’d still accept someone as family if they didn’t believe in God. I was grilled about religion. No one came to my defense. Everyone treated me like I was mad because “We don’t do that in this family.” Because of the way he was raised, when I did finally get to have a sleepover at my dad's house, he made my friend and I sleep with the door open, and he sat across the hall on the foot of his bed watching us both until we fell asleep; she asked me after that if I liked her, and never spoke to me again when I said yes.

When Grandma had a heart attack when I was in Junior High School, I was never the same. The thought of losing her or Grandpa was devastating. Eventually, we lost my great grandma that year, and I listened to my grandfather and his sister tear into each other from my perch on my dad’s ladder rack in the driveway, through the screen door, across the kitchen, and into the dining room, while grandma did everything she could to calm him down. It reminded me of how my dad would just start raging on a tangent, sometimes while standing directly behind grandma, while she sat hunched at the table, letting him go on and on until he shouted himself out. I always wondered why she didn’t yell right back; life taught me why. Sometimes yelling back is just a waste of energy. Plus, at that time, it would’ve undoubtedly caused her another heart attack. I cried because I wondered if I’d caused them all to be sick because I couldn’t believe in God. My brain just couldn’t make sense of it. I was diagnosed with depression at the end of that year. These days, I wonder if she was the only one in the family who knew he was autistic, and wouldn't even tell him because she was afraid he'd take it out on Grandpa or something. She mentioned once going to therapy with him and acknowledged (as he later did) that he was being treated for depression (which isn't surprising at all,) but seemed to always be holding something back whenever I asked questions. All she'd say was that he failed second grade, and they pulled him out of Catholic school after that.

Something else started when I was in Junior High: I joined Choir. It made me so happy when Grandma and Grandpa would come to my concerts, because I understood completely the amount of effort it took to get my grandfather from Point A to Point B, being that he was in a wheelchair, and it was a good feeling that someone was willing to go to so much effort to see me. The part I grew to hate though, was when Grandma would have me stand straight and tall in the dining room to perform for her friends and family, while tape recording me. I told her and everyone multiple times that it scared me to sing in front of people by myself, and that I hated hearing myself on a recording, and yet my protests fell on deaf ears. Any time I said no, I’d get lectured about being selfish, and that I should do as Grandma wanted. Eventually, I grew to hate performing because of the feeling of pageantry.

I started writing when I was 12, and felt even worse when my writing wasn’t received anywhere near as well as my singing had been. One or two family members mentioned reading a poem or two, but the overall reaction was that it was just some whim that was never going to get me anywhere the way ‘The gift that God gave me’ would’ve. The older I got, the more I got the impression that I simply didn’t belong. There was something different about me. As long as I didn’t bring up religion, liking girls, or liking someone whose skin was a different color, my grandparents and I could spend all the time in the world under the same roof. Sitting through family dinners that had prayers at the beginning never got any easier, but I kept my mouth shut and did what I’d been taught to do, for the sake of the little bit of happiness that came after.

When my grandpa died in 2006, I was somewhat shocked that almost all of his things disappeared almost overnight. Given that I remember phone calls where he asked for his gun, and conversations about him flirting with his in-home nurse (resulting in my dad seducing and then firing her, and pouring me glasses of Bacardi to keep my mouth shut and stay away from his bedroom door in the process), I don’t blame grandma in the slightest nowadays for wanting to move forward. Even though that person technically wasn’t Grandpa anymore, I’m sure those being some of her final memories of him must’ve been devastating.

One of my favorite memories of her was when I walked past the front room late one night, half a dozen years after Grandpa died, to find her sitting in the pitch-black middle of the night under a single lamp, reading The Shining. (I plan to do this sometime this week) When I looked at her like she’d lost her mind, and told her it was one of the scariest books in existence, she turned it to look at the front cover and said: “What, this?”

Having her at my wedding is something I will genuinely miss in April, but I’m glad she was able to make it the first time. I long ago forgave her for asking “When are you getting married?” at every public meal we had until I finally caved and proposed to my daughter’s father, even though he did not share the belief that two people should marry just because they had a child together. He also didn’t believe in indoctrinating children into religion any more than I did, but rather than accepting my decision not to baptize my daughter, Grandma and my birth mother blew up my phone about it being ‘family tradition’ until I negotiated it into my initial custody agreement, costing my daughter her birth name in the process.

Needless to say, my marriage was a disaster, and even though I was pissed at Grandma for managing to convince me that doing things her way had been the right thing to do, I was grateful to her for pouring me a glass of wine, sitting patiently in her armchair, and listening to me vent about it from time to time (it took me a very long time to realize this was me acting exactly like my dad.) She made it possible for me to find a job as a single mother and full-time college student. She even opened her home to me and my daughter when things got really bad more than once in my life, even though I refused to tolerate her and my dad’s insistent argument that I had to abide by a curfew and go to church, when I was in my 20s.

The constant micromanaging of almost every decision I made made it abundantly clear that the overall impression was that there was something wrong with me that instilled in everyone the overwhelming need to teach me how to do things ‘the right way;’ and yet, when I started spending time with a mentor who actually talked to me openly about mental illnesses, SSRIs, what chemo and radiation looked like when someone was going through them (I’ll never forget her lifting her shirt at Grandma’s table, or the look on Grandma’s face when she did!,) and became a person with whom I could actually have a conversation with and feel like I was an equal, not someone who was being condescended to, I was lectured for bringing her to gatherings when she was ‘not family,’ and it ‘wasn’t appropriate.’ Nobody ever thought to ask why I felt the need to bring someone to a family gathering in order to have someone to talk to.

Grandma and I spent LOADS of time together. We grocery shopped together. We clothes shopped together. We went to her friends’ houses together, and went for walks around the block more times than I can count. We never had the same connection we did before I came out as a Wiccan, and we never again talked about me being attracted to people of both the same gender and/or different race.

She told me not to ‘darken her doorstep again’ in 2009, and I was all too happy to oblige, until everyone (my birth mother among them) told me “you don’t know what you’re doing.” So I gave her another chance. She still kept trying to get me to live my life based on her Catholic beliefs. Eventually, it felt like any time we were in a room together, she was having to tiptoe around my feelings. She’d burst into tears and apologize, and I’d be left feeling like I was somehow doing something wrong. I still kept in touch, however infrequently. I’d already been hit with enough hurtful comments that I was pretty much numb to anything she or anyone else said, and resigned myself to ‘grinning and bearing it’ if she ended up talking about religion or telling me to do something I’d already told her plenty of times wasn’t something I was interested in. I accepted that she was getting older and that, like me, she was bound to repeat herself or lose track of the conversation. She was Grandma, and I loved her, so I’d let her say her peace because I knew it brought her a little bit of happiness, even if there was very little opportunity for my input. Then my son learned how to talk, and wanted to tell her anything and everything he was capable of saying, at rapid speed, while she couldn’t understand any of it, and he couldn’t understand why. I listened to him cry when he’d wanted to say something else to her, but she’d settled into her goodbye routine and was already off the phone. I’m not angry at her for getting old, I just simply couldn’t keep putting my son through that. I remember what it felt like when I was little, and almost every time I opened my mouth, she told me to speak more slowly because she couldn’t understand me. I couldn’t sit and watch the same thing happen to my son.

In terms of her relationship with my daughter, I loved seeing the two of them interact when my daughter was little. It breaks my heart that my 11 year old has experienced loss yet again at such a young age. One of my main goals in life was to try to shield her from grief and loss as long as I could. Life had other plans. This year, because I wanted my daughter to understand that I would do whatever it took to support her and any choice she makes in her life, I chose to stay away from my grandmother, who was the very same person who had talked me into putting my daughter up for adoption before she was born in the first place, and then later made it very clear she didn’t agree with the people I chose to raise her. I couldn’t be sure that the news I’d be bringing this time would be well-received, and I didn’t want to be held responsible for causing my grandmother a heart attack on her birthday.

It breaks my heart that a woman who survived the Great Depression, multiple cancer battles, and so much grief and loss even I can’t fathom it, was taken down by pneumonia and COVID. It’s my understanding that she fought it until the very end, making her every bit the badass she always was, and it devastates me that she couldn’t go peacefully in her sleep; she deserved nothing less, after everything life put her through. I don’t understand how the vaccine that was supposed to keep her alive failed. I don’t understand how the vaccine wasn’t formulated specifically for people like her, when we’ve known since last year that it primarily targets elderly people with underlying health issues. I don’t understand why the CDC would’ve halted studies on using plasma treatments from COVID-surviving donors, when that type of treatment could’ve easily kept her alive, and despite everything, I would’ve gladly gotten my plasma tested and donated.

It’s been said now that the relationship I had with her the past 20 years was my fault because I wouldn’t be patient and persistent with her, or take the time to educate her. My counterpoint is that there are many families with matriarchs now in their 90s as well, where nobody ever had to fear being themselves, and nobody had to educate anyone. My grandmother converted her religion at 18 years old, seemingly without question, because she loved my grandfather, but when it came to loving and supporting me, all she could do sometimes was make me feel like I wasn’t a person at all. Or at least not a person to be taken seriously.

I find it odd that I offered multiple times to video chat with her, or send pictures to her phone, only to hear ‘my phone doesn’t do that,’ when I’ve seen screenshots of her video chatting with my cousins. I even installed an app on her phone and configured her wi-fi to it the last time I was in Ohio, and taught her how to use it so she could video chat with the kids and I, and she never once used it. She just kept saying it was too complicated, and didn’t ask anyone else to help her after I left. I find it odd that she supposedly spent so much time crying because she was thinking about me, but didn’t pick up the phone more than once in a while, even though she’d known me all my life, and knew I don’t willingly make phone calls to anyone if I can help it, because I’ve been in phone-based work almost all my life, and I absorb information better if I read it. She was the primary reason I didn’t change my phone number when I moved to Nebraska, because I didn’t want her to have to try to memorize a new one.

I’ve only just started down the road of processing a lifetime of trauma, but something tells me I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to understand what could’ve been done differently besides me living one life in front of her, and another life I kept secret from her. Then again, I’ve long wondered if she had more than a few secrets of her own.