Essays

“I don’t know how to be nine. When people ask, I’ll still say I’m eight. I know how to act eight.”
    The evening before, we’d had a small family celebration for my daughter’s ninth birthday, and she and I were walking on a dirt path in Rock Creek Park, shaded by newly leafed white oaks and red maples tall above us, the April air crisp and cool. I was curious about Lee’s comment because the previous night, wearing a long black velvet dress with her light brown hair pulled back in a bun that she’d styled herself, she had seemed nine and then some. At the head of the table, she beamed, asking people if they’d had enough to eat and, later, cutting her cake and passing around slices for everyone, making sure they received the size they wanted. “Would you like vanilla ice cream with it?” she asked. Around her neck was an antique gold locket, a bequest from her grandmother. She gave an extra large piece to her dad, Bob, because his birthday would be in three days.
    “Thank you Lee,” he said. “You are so thoughtful.”

———

When Lee turned eight, my mother was living with us, undergoing chemotherapy for ovarian cancer. Moving Mom to our Washington, D.C. home had eliminated my frequent trips to California, but didn’t end the chaos in our lives. Lee and her brother Charlie, age 6, still competed with their grandmother for my time and when they had my attention, it was distracted at best.
    I felt I’d missed big chunks of Lee’s 8th year. Once, while we were driving in the car together, I described the so-called sandwich generation to Lee  – how I was squeezed between hers and my mother’s. “But Mommy, I don’t feel I have any part of the sandwich,” she said, her blue eyes looking at mine through the rear-view mirror. She was frowning and looked confused. I was crushed. Until that moment, I’d been under the impression that I’d achieved at least some balance between my mother’s care and the children’s needs, but I couldn’t argue with Lee’s feelings. She felt neglected.
However, even though most of the year is a blur of doctor’s visits, chemotherapy treatments, late nights working on assignments I couldn’t finish during the day, attending Lee’s soccer games and Charlie’s baseball games, making arrangements for everyone in the family, and performing household tasks -- certain snapshots of Lee stand out.

When Lee first learned Grandma Nancy was coming to live with us, she was ecstatic. “I’m so happy she’ll be here all the time,” she said, running up and giving me a joyful hug. But in the midst of preparing for Mom’s arrival and flying out to California to get her, I neglected to describe Mom’s condition to the children. When Lee saw Grandma Nancy, she recoiled. She didn’t run up and hug her as usual and didn’t know how to act. Her beloved grandma looked as though she’d aged fifteen years: she walked slowly with a cane, couldn’t use her left hand, wore a scarf to cover her thinning hair and lacked her usual confidence.
    This was not the fast-moving, vibrant, active Grandma Lee knew, the grandma who hiked with her in Rock Creek Park just a few months before the cancer diagnosis; the grandma who traveled with us every year on vacations, actively participating in everything but skiing; the grandma who six months before that had stayed with her and Charlie while I was on a business trip, driving them to school and soccer practice, navigating Washington’s traffic circles that didn’t exist in California. While I was gone on that business trip, Lee had helped prepare meals and they had their usual long chats over dinner while Lee, a deliberate eater, finished her meal, and Mom, an avid listener, heard about every detail of Lee’s day, usually a long accounting. A fast-eater and not one to linger over dinner, Charlie was usually long gone by then. Bob probably left shortly after Charlie, having heard enough minutiae.
    While Mom lived with us during her illness, Charlie masked whatever reactions he had to my mom’s appearance with his usual excited chatter. I’m sure he noticed Grandma Nancy’s condition, but he didn’t mention it and his behavior was the same as before. In time, Lee, too, was chatting away with Grandma Nancy, especially over meals and during quiet times when they sat together on the couch and read and talked, Lee with her straight brown hair leaning into Mom’s head of wispy, white.
    Lee liked to use Mom’s canes as crutches, putting the four-pronged under one armpit and the single leg under the other. She clumped around the house, pretending she’d broken her leg. More than once, she wrapped one of her ankles with an Ace bandage. Often we heard my mother’s voice throughout the house, “Lee, I need a cane.”
    “I’m coming Grandma Nancy,” Lee said, hobbling over to Mom on both canes and grandly giving her grandmother a choice of the aluminum one that an old person would use or the stylish dark wood that Mom preferred, especially for going out of the house.    

Lee’s second grade class rehearsed Native American dances for many months for a school open house. Mom wanted desperately to attend and managed, in her impaired condition, to dress herself in a nice Navy skirt and blue sweater with a matching hat to cover her hair loss. She even applied makeup with one hand, though nothing hid how ill and frail she looked. Her presence made all the difference for Lee who happily led her around the school, showing off the artwork on display. Lee’s painted clay storyteller was a showstopper. With careful detail, she’d sculpted an older Native American woman who sat with small children on her lap, shoulders, in her arms, and even on her head, patiently listening to the tales she was telling.
    “That’s truly a work of art,” Grandma Nancy said. “Even when you were a small girl, you could make the tiniest things from clay.”
    “That’s because my fingers are so small.” Then Lee led her grandmother to a front row seat in the library. The second graders danced a tale about a princess swimming too far out to sea who then was rescued by animals. 

During July, we traveled with Mom to Washington state where she spent two months with my brother and his family. Lee, Charlie and I stayed there a week before going home. Lee was delighted to have time with Grandma on my brother’s hundred acres that included a frog pond and a kennel of Golden Retriever puppies. Her usual morning visit to the kennel began with a fast run down the road because she couldn’t wait to be surrounded by barking, licking puppies.
“Grandma, you’ve got to see the puppies,” Lee said. “They are so amazing.” Mom could barely traverse the living room, let alone the dirt driveway leading to the barn but she and Lee worked out a system with Grandma Nancy holding onto Lee’s shoulder with her strong hand and Lee walked step-by-step to guide her. With their heads close together, the two figures walked slowly down the rutted road, and I cried watching.
    “Grandma, look at this one, he’s one of my favorites. Willow. He always comes to the cage to say hi to me.”  Lee brought her grandmother over to see him and as Grandma Nancy bent over to pat his head they both simultaneously said, “He’s so cute,” and broke out laughing. Lee found a chair for her grandma and brought another favorite, Rosie, for a pat.

When Mom returned to our house in September, we all were eager to see her. We’d missed her lilting laugh at the dinner table and her gentle presence around the house. For her first night at home, Grandma Nancy was to sleep in Lee’s room because family friends would be staying in hers while attending a college reunion. Lee planned for Grandma Nancy’s sleepover for two weeks. “She should sleep in my bed because it will be easier for her to get up to go to the bathroom,” Lee said in preparation. “I’ll sleep in the trundle bed.”
    The next day, still preparing, Lee announced she had cleared off the nightstand so Grandma Nancy could have a glass of water if she needed it. One day after school, Lee worked in her room for a couple of hours and when she came out, she held up a colorful, decorated sign: “Welcome Grandma Nancy” in blue, red, green and gold. I helped her tape it to the front of her bedroom door. The day before Mom’s arrival, Lee announced at the grocery store, “I want to get some flowers for our room.”
    Grandma Nancy noticed every preparation. “Lee, you are so thoughtful,” she said. “I’m lucky to be staying in your room.”

During the fall, Lee struggled with a new school, new friends, a new routine. The new school was larger than her other school, met in a school building – not an old mansion – and was, well, new. Lee was the new kid. The other third grade girls didn’t purposely exclude her: they already had friends dating to their nursery years and just didn’t think to include her. She cried when she came home from school and complained about every difference between the two places – and she observed them all.
    “We didn’t have this much homework at Brandon,” she yelled. “You weren’t in third grade,” I reminded her, but logic was not welcome. I tried to console her.  I ached for her. She accepted comfort from Mom in a way that she wouldn’t from me.

Very soon, a dramatic shift at home added to her other changes. Grandma Nancy’s cancer stopped responding to treatment and started to take over her body. Grandma Nancy stopped eating but kept pushing on, spending quiet time with Lee and,  amazingly, still pitching a whiffle ball to Charlie in the side yard. Her stamina was extraordinary. I watched from the family room window in sheer amazement as she threw the ball to Charlie with her good arm, he hit it and then came around, picked it up and handed it to her for another pitch.  
    “My teacher is so much stricter than I’m used to,” Lee told her. “And I miss my friends.”
    “It’s hard to change schools,” Grandma Nancy said. “Do you like anything about the new school?”
    “There’s one girl I like. And the art teachers are nice.”

Grandma Nancy hadn’t eaten much in a couple of weeks, yet she was still fairly active and conversational. How could that be? The children knew she was sick but didn’t realize how critically and I didn’t know how much to tell them or when. She was determined to attend one event: her grandchildren were serving as flower girl and ring bearer in the wedding of a close family friend, a young man in his 20s.  The morning of the wedding, in the midst of getting the children ready, I walked into Mom’s room and found her half-dressed, resting on her back on the bed.
    “Oh, Mom, you don’t have to go to the wedding,” I said. “Everyone will understand if you can’t come.”
    “I just need to rest,” she said. “You go help the kids. I’ll be fine.” We’d hired a companion to drive her separately so she wouldn’t have to arrive early with us.
    When we met her at the church just before the wedding began, Mom wore a stunning azure blue suit and lace blouse with full makeup. Soft and curly, her newly-grown white hair gently framed her face. She appeared to be a frail older woman walking gingerly with a cane, full of smiles, not a woman fighting for her life. Lee ran over to hug her. “Oh, Grandma, you’re here!”
    Grandma Nancy held Lee a long time. “You look exquisite, Lee,” she said. “And, Charlie, you look so grown up,” she said as Charlie joined them in a hug. He was wearing gray slacks, a Navy blazer, white shirt and red tie. Mom took a seat near the back in case she had to make an emergency trip to the bathroom. From there, she could see her granddaughter carry flowers down the aisle wearing a full-length velvet ivory dress and a halo of flowers on her head. Charlie took his ring bearing responsibilities seriously as he solemnly walked down the carpet and then stood next to the groom and groomsmen, all three times his height.

A couple nights after the wedding, Mom vomited in her bed and I felt she shouldn’t be left alone the rest of the night. I set up a cot near her room and kept vigil. Lee awoke from the noise and came to join me, snuggling with me in the cot.
    “Is Grandma Nancy getting sicker?” she asked.
    “I’m afraid so,” I said. I had put off telling her how bad the situation was, partly due to my own denial, partly due to what I had read about not telling children too early. What was early? Mom’s condition had worsened overnight. “She’s not going to get better this time,” I said.
    Lee remained silent and snuggled in deeper with me. Eventually we fell asleep but it was sporadic sleep for me. I woke up raw and exhausted.

At the suggestion of a grief counselor who was now seeing the children, Lee created a Memory Book of experiences, carefully drawing several memories, each one on its own page. The book was for Lee to keep after Grandma Nancy was gone, to remind her of their times together. But Lee had other ideas. In what might have been an awkward exchange for many people, Lee shared the book with her grandmother, Lee sitting on Grandma Nancy’s bed.  
    “This shows all the people on your side of the family,” Lee said, pointing out Grandpa Newt. Lee didn’t remember her grandfather but knew how important he was to Grandma Nancy. “Here’s Mommy and Uncle Jeff, here’s Aunt Val and Daddy, and here are all your grandchildren.”
    “I think I know what this one is,” Grandma Nancy said, looking at the next page. “This looks like the time Jesse’s arm was in a cast and he tried to go swimming.”  Jesse’s arm was held high above the swimming pool, wrapped in plastic.
    “Yes, that’s it!” Lee said, spontaneously hugging Grandma Nancy. “And this is you and me picking apricots off your tree in California.” Each visit to Grandma Nancy’s before she became ill had been full of wonderful surprises: stuffed animals to play with that Grandma collected from thrift shops and neighbors; favorite foods of Lee’s and Charlie’s waiting in the refrigerator; activities planned that they loved to do like visiting a local nature center. Grandma Nancy bought a small, inflatable plastic wading pool for hot summer days.
    “And that must be my cat,” Grandma Nancy said.
    “Yes, in one of her friendly moods,” Lee laughed.

Two weeks after the wedding, Lee went into Grandma’s room, as she did every morning before school, braving the pungent odors of body fluids. “Good bye, Grandma,” she said, kissing Grandma Nancy on her forehead.
    “Good bye, Darling.” Mom raised her hand weakly from the bed. “Have a good day at school.”  Neither one knew it was their last goodbye.

    Lee was 8½ years old.  In the six months following, she attended two memorial services for her grandmother: serving as a greeter for the one in our D.C. home and holding my hand for support during the California memorial. She became more familiar with her new school, achieved high scores on her first test – about difficult geology terminology – and traveled to Puerto Rico for Christmas.
    Also during those six months, Lee helped bury her grandmother’s ashes, collected all the cards her grandmother had sent her over the years and put them in a special box, studied to become a Junior Girl Scout, cried in protest over having to do so much homework when her younger brother could just hang out after school, played every day with her pet rabbit, and slept at night with her teddy bear and night light.
    As we walked up the hill toward home on that Sunday afternoon, I said, “But you truly are nine. Each day of this past year you’ve gotten a little older and more mature and you’ve grown into being nine.” She listened, turned to me, and smiled.
The next morning, mischievously, I asked Lee how old she was. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Nine.”

First published in Bayou Magazine, Issue 51, 2009. Recognized as “Notable Essay” by Best American Essays 2010.