Ode to Gus

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

What Some People Will Do

A phone call came to my house yesterday afternoon, and being the only one home, I answered it. It was from a company called Lifeline, an organization providing services to senior citizens should they find themselves in an emergency and unable to reach a phone. My Grandma is registered with Lifeline, and she wears a bracelet with a button she can push if she falls or feels threatened by a situation that an 86-year-old woman feels she cannot handle alone.

The man from Lifeline began the conversation like most telemarketers do: “May I please speak with Mr. Brad Harn…Harnet…Harnet-tee—oxx?” Disenchanted, I responded, “Yeah, he can’t come to the phone, call back another time.” The man then very urgently said,” This is NOT a telemarketer! Brad’s mother has fallen. She has taken a fall.”

“Wha--when? Where is she?”

“I don’t know. In her house maybe. She pressed the button on her bracelet and we were told to contact Brad.”

Brad is my father and he is at work, the number of which I don’t know. Wait. Is she OK? I give them my mother’s work number. Who is helping her? I drive to her assisted living residence, cursing at fucking cars that are going the speed limit. I expect to see her door opened, people helping her. Her door is closed and locked. I open it and see her alone on the floor, her eyes open and a pillow under her head. I kneel down and she asks who is there? John Robert.

Oh, John Robert! I tell you, John Robert, what some people will do to get attention!

* * *
Since coming home, I often go to visit my Grandma. We call her the G-ma. She is a nurse, an educator, a comedian, and a philosopher. She loves God and St. Francis and hates George W. Bush. She once said that the war in Iraq is being used by Bush to beef up his pregnancy. Although we find later that she meant “presidency,” (not pregnancy) we find the misnomer oddly fitting. She is currently brainstorming a cure for cancer. The G-ma has thousands of stories, most of which we hear every sitting. Others we hear for the first time and they are wonderfully refreshing. She always informs me how my time spent in Japan will add to the strength of my resume. She commends my younger brother for visiting the “learning center” at his college. She can quote Shakespeare, Whitman, Keller, Keats, and Norman Maclean on the drop of a dime. She often forgets what she did in the previous hour, but she treats these lapses with the humor and resilience she gained by growing up during the Depression, living through wars and deaths, and now through her old age.

* * *
The paramedics arrive shortly after, along with firemen, and also the director of her place of residence. She is calm, collected, and relates the events as much as her short-term memory will allow, honest about what she does and does not remember. The paramedics load her onto a stretcher and we travel a few blocks to the emergency room where she is examined. She is overwhelmed and tired, yet remarkably coherent and detailed. My Dad arrives, greets her, and she jokingly replies, “What’s your name again?” Then giggles.

* * *
Plagued by the same question for the better part of my adult life, I decide to ask the G-ma for her thoughts while driving to my house for dinner:

“Grandma, why is that some people suffer so much in their lives, and others, by comparison, suffer so little.” She answers quickly and confidently, as though she too has pondered this question to great length and finally arrived at an appropriate answer:

“By design, that is not a question for us to ask, for you will not find and answer. It is out of our hands.”

She speaks of her childhood in Montana, and how she believes Monatanians exude a certain perseverance that is unique to them. Long, cold winters and hotter-than-Hell summers. This sounds romantic and rustic to me, and I imagine myself in a grizzly beard, a man of few words and alone in the world. A man without the comfort of my possessions, my books, my movies, and the general tools of sustenance I know I take for granted every minute of the day. I envision Norman Maclean’s description of such people as being “as tough as their axe handles.” It occurs to me that the G-ma is this way: tough as her axe handle.

* * *
Her examination reveals that she has broken a couple ribs in the fall. This is not life-threatening, but for a woman in her old age, it has noticeable setbacks, not to mention sizeable discomfort. I hear my Dad on the phone with her this morning, and she reports that she feels she ought to see a doctor to be examined, at which point my Dad reminds her that she was examined in the emergency room the day before. She slept well, though.

* * *
We have a ritual with the G-ma, all of us in the family. She has a statue of St. Francis standing on the mantle outside the door of her room. When we leave, either with her or to return to our own homes, she walks us outside her door. We place our hands on the head of St. Francis and she recites this original prayer:

“May God bless all those we love, and all those we’re not so sure about…and may He bring peace to this troubled world.”