These were the ominous words that greeted us at every visit to my Grandma Mabel’s place. She had been dying since I was a little kid in the early nineteen sixties. I would stay at her house with my brothers, and we would be solemnly informed of her impending demise at the beginning of every visit. There were times that I believed her predictions, especially when she fell asleep in the armchair while watching the television. Her head would be leaning forward with the mouth hanging open, minus dentures of course, along with half opened glazed eyes just staring blankly at the screen.
“Hey guys! I think she’s dead!” one of us would exclaim.
We would gather around her and stare wide eyed while wondering if this was really “it”. Pretty soon an eye would flutter followed by a reassuring snore or two and we would relax again. Grandma Mabel didn’t achieve her goal until the year 2000 at the ripe old age of 92. She outlived her son by six years and probably robbed us of twenty.
Of course, grandma was an expert of the things that you could die from. Why just sleeping on the floor could result in your untimely demise from the ever present “drafts” that lurked around my grandma’s place, searching for an unsuspecting youth to kill.
She would eagerly read every letter from every old friend, searching for the latest tragic death to talk about. She was always getting new fatal diseases and would relate all the symptoms to any unfortunate soul that was with in earshot. She was the busiest dying person I ever knew. She always had to know what was going on, who was doing what, and why in the world had they not invited her!
She regained contact with her long-lost brother John in 1960 and they lived together in a sort of love but mostly hate relationship. They both had the last name of Foster, as grandma had taken back her maiden name after her husband left her, so most people thought they were married. They might as well have been as they sure acted like it. They lived up to the old saying “marriage is a fine institution, that is, if you like institutions”.
Grandma used to smoke so she had the typical pinched “smoker’s” face and was as “thin as a rail” as she would say. She was full of strange little sayings such as “I have to go see a man about a kitten” whenever she needed to go to the restroom. All my life I remember her talking about “taking care of Suziebell” and I thought she had a secret friend she would commune with on occasion until her last few years I learned that “Suziebell” was her secret word for the feminine hygiene department.
I recently saw some pictures of Grandma Mabel when she was young and my father was still a baby. In the picture she was “thin as a rail” and she looked pretty much as she looked in her latter years, pinched face and all. From the stories she would tell she was a fiery tempered red head. Her husband, Gerald, was described by her as a very abusive individual who consorted with the criminal element of the times. He was a cook and the gangster Dutch Shultz and his gang would hang out at my grandparent’s home and eat there.
One time Grandma Mabel, then around 19 or 20 years old, was carving up a chicken in the kitchen. Cooling on the open window sill was a pie she had just taken out of the oven. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a pair of hands reaching up to the window sill from the outside to steal the pie. It was one of the gangsters and grandma’s response was to take the meat fork in her hand and pin the thief’s hand to the sill with it. The resulting screams and cursing proved very entertaining to the other gangsters and their opinion of grandma went way up. I, myself, have always made it a point never to try to take anything from grandma when she had any sharp instruments in her hands.
The sight that would strike fear into all members of my family was that of an approaching Ford or Mercury with a tiny set of eyes peering between the steering wheel and the dash as Grandma and Uncle Johnny came to visit. Johnny was a sweet old man who loved his great nephews because he could take us bowling or to the park for an outing just to get away from grandma. He was a very quiet man who spoke so rapidly one could hardly understand a word he said. I remember the week before my wedding he decided that as the oldest male in our family it was his duty to explain the birds and the bees to me and the proper care of my soon to be wife. I nodded gravely while offering an occasional “right” or “OK” as he rapidly, and mostly unintelligibly, spoke of the wonderful world of sex and marriage.
Uncle Johnny would always be with grandma and she took it upon herself to loudly comment on every move he made.
“Hurry up John! Watch your step, John! Careful John!” all the while Johnny would quietly get out of the car and slowly follow her to the door.
You could hear them long before the inevitable knock on the door followed by the customary peek in the window to see if you were hiding from her. When I still lived at home with my parents, they would occasionally finance a movie for me to get me out of the house so they could have some “private time”. It was during one of these evenings that grandma and John stopped by for a visit. As my folks later related to me, they heard her long before the dreaded knock on the door. They had the lights turned down in the home to provide ambiance for this “special” evening so they just stayed still hoping she would figure that no one was home. After several knocks they heard grandma coming around to the other side of the home to peek in the windows. They thought they had succeeded in their little deception until they heard a crash coming from the kitchen. Dad ran into the kitchen to find grandma pushing a protesting Uncle Johnny through the open window as she was certain some nefarious activity was going on and she had to save the day. My very angry, and equally naked, father informed them that all was well and rather bluntly requested them to leave the premises. Grandma was of course insulted at the lack of appreciation for her efforts to save them and left in a huff while a slightly smiling and very amused Uncle Johnny followed faithfully along.
Grandma Mabel has a nose that most bloodhounds would envy. She could smell a mosquito fart in a hurricane. Just open the refrigerator while she was around and she would start listing off all the things that had “gone bad” and then start throwing them out without waiting for your permission. When I lived on my own with my roommate, Rod, he, and I would live off grandma’s discarded food. We would always offer to take it home “for the dogs” after a visit and then eat like kings for a week until we went over for the next “scrap run”. She invented the term “musty” and used it for everything that she couldn’t positively identify. She and John lived for a while out by Twenty-Nine Palms in southern California until John’s death in 1983. She would repeatedly call out the local gas provider to complain about a hazardous gas leak under her home. Each time they would patiently come out and explain that the nearest natural gas line was five miles away. Of course, this would never satisfy grandma as she was certain that her nose always knew best.
After my parents died grandma’s care fell to me and my older brother David and our wives. We would take turns picking her up to go to the store or for the meetings she attended with us at the Kingdom Hall. My father had sold her car while she was visiting friends in southern California as she was getting to be a hazard to all life on the roads of Sacramento. My children finally refused to ride with her, and these kids were the most fearless riders of the most death-defying contraptions at the amusement parks.
“She only goes two speeds Dad! On and off!” they would tell me after she would drop them off at home.
My youngest was impressed because “grandma doesn’t even have to look when she turns”.
As we would return her to her home she would, as always, inform us that she was sure she wasn’t going to survive the night. Once my brother Dave was with me when she made the usual announcement and Dave turned to me and said,
“I get her T.V.!”
“I get her microwave!” I replied.
Grandma would just screw her wrinkled face up into a disgusted look as we shamelessly mocked her impending departure from the land of the living. The next day, when I would pick her up, I would teasingly greet her with:
“What are you doing here? I thought you would be dead!”
She would respond with her patented pinched face of disgust and proceed to inform me of the latest malady taking its toll on her. She was actually very good natured, and I like to think she appreciated our warped sense of humor. She just hid it well with a perfect imitation of an irritated sand crab, all tough on the outside and scurrying around with pinchers raised, but soft and sweet on the inside. You just had to boil them well first.
Grandma almost achieved her dream in 1998. She came down with pneumonia and had to be rushed to the hospital. The doctor came out to us and asked us if we wanted them to put her on a respirator her as she was having difficulty breathing. He informed us that without it she would surely die and that even with the respirator she might not survive. We opted to give it a try and were shocked to see an alert and smiling Grandma Mabel when we entered her room the next morning. She was breathing on her own and made a rapid recovery. As we left the hospital I noticed a few hostile looks directed at me and Dave from our wives and some of the kids as they were sure it was our fault that grandma had not achieved her lifelong goal.
It was two years later, after her 92nd birthday that the doctor informed her of the rapidly progressing cancer that was going to end her life in “about two weeks”. Grandma was ecstatic and happily moved into my home to await the final frontier. When we got her settled on the couch I offered her a glass of good wine but she said she shouldn’t.
“Why?” I asked.
“Because the doctor said wine may slow down my breathing” she replied.
“And the problem is?” I asked as I smiled at her and held out the glass of fine wine.
She smiled back and said “Yes, I’d love a glass of wine!”
To this day we still have the picture of a smiling Grandma Mabel sitting on our couch holding up a glass of red wine. The doctor however proved that he was just “practicing medicine” as she survived almost a full month until she passed away in her sleep. During this time, she changed into a sweet little old lady, we, of course, were immediately suspicious.
One day it started raining and grandma asked me to take carry her out to see it. I’m sure we made an interesting sight sitting in a chair in the rain with grandma in my lap while holding an umbrella over us but the contented smile on her face was well worth the effort.
The last few days she was rather incoherent and reverted to the irritated sand crab mode, but it would not have been the same if she hadn’t. She greatly enjoyed the attention and care she received those last few weeks of her life from her little grandson and his family. The kids would take turns caring for her and the pleasant sibling banter would go like this.
“Marisa! Grandma’s boob is hanging out of the bottom of her gown again! Come tuck it back in!”
”No!” would be the reply “I did it last time, you do it!”
Grandma would meanwhile be blissfully unaware of her wardrobe malfunction and be thoroughly enjoying the show.
One particularly difficult night I had stayed up with grandma all night long as she needed regular pain medication.
“I’m uncomfortable!” she yelled at me in the morning.
Since I hadn’t had any sleep and had a busy day at work ahead of me I was less than patient and replied “Grandma, you’re dying, what do you expect?”
“Oh” she replied “that’s right, sorry dear” as I repositioned her in the bed.
She didn’t take offence at my blunt statement and seemed to smile to herself as she realized once again that she was living her dream.