Gramma

My parents are back in the States for about two months. I was tempted to say that they are home for two months but that really isn't true. While the United States has more or less become home for me, it may never really ever again be home for Mom and Dad. We moved two the Philippines in 1981. The United States was a very different country then. Ronald Reagan had just been sworn in and the Iranian government returned the embassy hostages. The Sears catalog was delivered to just about every home. Eight tracks could still be bought even though they were on their way out. The walkman had yet to be invented. Daisy Duke flaunted her stuff in shorty shorts but blatant talk of sex, orgasms and homosexuality were taboo on the airwaves. AIDS was unknown at the time. The internet was still so secret that Al Gore probably didn't know about it yet. So much has changed since the summer of 1981.
One of the nice things about Mom and Dad being back is that there is more motivation to go see Gramma. It isn't that I don't think about visiting Gramma while they are gone. Visiting Gramma can be a very difficult thing to do. She is now closer to 95 than 90 and her hearing is not quite what it used to be. This leads to a lot of repeating, writing things down and yelling on my part. For Gramma it leads to a lot of not quite being sure what I just said but being a champ and nodding. It is so much easier to visit Gramma when we can tag team.
I read a story the other day about a 4 year old boy who died of a seizure. The whole time I read the story I couldn't help but think about my nephew who is 4 right now. In the news article the people who knew the boy talked about how this little boy lived life for all he was worth. He was friends with everyone he met. Not the casual friend who waves but the kind of friend who wanted to carry the heaviest grocery bag for the neighbor lady, the kind of friend who reached out to the shyest kid in his preschool class, the kind of kid who remembered personal things about his elderly neighbors. Not only was the boy a friend to everyone but he excelled in baseball, playing as a stand in for teams with kids twice his age. He didn't just play stand in, he played harder and better than the kids on the team. Everything about him exuded life and a drive to experience as much as he could with that life. As I thought about my own nephew and what it would be like to lose him right now as he is just starting his life I couldn't help but mourn with the parents.
On the flip side is Gramma. She has lived in a tent and on a farm. She has been a nurse, is now a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. She and Grandad traveled the world while they were healthy enough to do so. Sometimes it was to see the world, sometimes to see missionaries, sometimes to be missionaries, and at least once to be smugglers. She has served the community she lived in as a public health nurse and as a volunteer chaplain in the local jail and juvenile hall. She also was very active with the Good News Club. She and Grandad started a Good News Club booth at the county fair which has been imitated across the country. I could go on and on but I think that I have said enough to get the point across. In 90 some odd years Gramma has lived a very full life!
Tonight I joked with Dad about his future involving a walker like Gramma's. He made it very clear that he has no plans for a walker in his future. I thought about that for a bit. Almost no one plans for a walker in their future. There are a few folks who would love to have a walker in their future because it would mean freedom from the chair they are currently trapped in but for most of us a walker is a symbol of decline. No one plans to decline to the point that the assistance of a walker is needed just to get out of bed. The truth though is that some people have to adjust to life with one as they age. It is not a reflection on the weakness of the person. Gramma is one of the toughest people I know. It just might be a reflection on the toughness of the people who are willing to adjust to using a walker in order to be able to continue to walk.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that there are people who have great potential for greatness who we mourn when their lives are cut short. There are people with potential for greatness who live long enough to meet that potential and enjoy some of the fruits of that potential. Gramma's hearing loss, occasional befuddlement and walker might cause some to see her as a doddering old woman near the end of her life. None of us want to be at the point where we are in the same condition as her. I do think though that she has earned the right to a little befuddlement, a little wobble and requests that we repeat ourselves once or twice...or five times. What a life well lived!