Polished Off

The problems of aging are many and one is the problem of perception. Things are not always viewed with flexibility and adaptation, but are structured by the past.

I usually just wear clear fingernail polish. This is one step above the example set by my mother who never wore polish. Last week, I took off my old polish and then neglected to replace it. On the way to Busybody’s I looked down and observed my hands and thought, “Oh, well. No one will notice.” We had been there about twenty minutes when Joy came over and whispered, “Gigi, if we get through in time this afternoon, I will polish your nails for you.” Good. A four year old noticed. Either she has much more time in her schedule, is more perceptive OR every adult I have encountered has noticed but been too polite to comment.

When my Mom was just entering the shadows of Alzheimer’s, but still able to walk around and attempt some limited tasks, she needed a full-time caregiver but resisted much of the help offered her. Through the week, I would pop in and out to check on her (and the caregiver) and deliver stuff, but Sundays were our days together. I would do many of the things that she refused to have the caregiver perform. Her nails seemed to always need care. I couldn’t stand that little –sometimes-bigger—line of grime that she wouldn’t submit to letting the caregiver remove. On Sunday afternoons, we would sit with a pan of warm, sudsy water on one our laps and chitchat until her nails were Mom clean again. Even from me, however, she balked at any attempt at manicuring, and it was a real challenge to keep her looking cared for.

One Sunday, I thought it would be fun, because the quest of life is for the good, the true, the beautiful and the fun, to take Mom out for a real manicure. She was always mistrustful of leaving the house because I might be tricking her into doing something she had specifically instructed me not to do, but then again, we might be going out for ice cream or pie or boxed candy (from a candy store) and so she went with me, but made it as difficult as possible. At least, I thought it was as difficult as possible until we reached the nail salon, and then I encountered what as difficult as possible really was.

She didn’t want to extend her hands to the manicurist but would turn towards me and grab my dress with both hands and, being far too ladylike to raise her voice, would entreat me with the most pathetic of looks to pleeeaaassseee, get her out of there. The manicurist had to firmly hold one hand while I held the other while she took off a snippet of nail. Mom then forgot being a lady and yelled, “ouch, ouch, ouch.” “Did you feel that?” “Well, no, but I thought I was going to”, she explained to me—the manicurist was either invisible to her or so far beneath her contempt that she would not talk to her. “Well, just wait until you do feel it, please don’t yell about “going to’”, I requested. My request went unheeded. As the snippets came off the second hand (it had to be snippets because Mom was jerking her hands so spasmodically, that the poor girl was afraid to do more) I said, “ Just dry her hands and slap on one coat of polish, we’re leaving” with a glare at the misbehaving mother. As I outrageously tipped the frazzled manicurist, Mom found her inside stage whisper and instructed me, “Don’t give her money for trying to hurt me.” The door had barely shut behind us when she burst out crying with huge crocodile tears running down her cheeks. I was truly fearful that someone would make a 9-1-1 call for elderly abuse while I was trying to get her back into the car.

I clicked her seatbelt with finality thinking I might leave her in for there for the rest of my Sunday visit, tried to cool off as I went around the car and got into my seat and turned to her and said, “What was that all about?” She was too absorbed with her sobbing to tell me. Her little, stooped shoulders heaved with the utter sorrow of her plight and I was helpless to be with her in it or to remove her from the immediacy of the situation. I had cooled down: There was ice around my heart and my hands were ice. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!

Finally, she said, “I don’t want to die this soon.” I tried to keep my voice normal, “Why do you think you are going to die soon?” She said, “Well, aren’t you trying to make my hands look nice for when they’re folded?” Ohhhhhhhh, I exhaled that as an eight-syllable word. All her opposition to basic hygiene had really been, to her, her fight for life.

Last week, we didn’t finish playing restaurant, or school or talent show in time for Joy to polish my fingernails, but tomorrow when I get there, we are going to spend a blissful few minutes letting her tend to me while I can still refrain from grimacing, grabbing and downright yelling. I may, however, sneak into the bathroom and remove the polish that goes onto other areas than my nails. Grandmas, you know what I’m talkin’ about!


Posted by The Editor for Gigi.

Move over, Tylenol!

On Sunday Joy started coughing. It feels like she just got over a cold and now she’s coughing again. She insisted, on Sunday, that she felt fine, that she was NOT getting sick. On Monday, the cough started rattling in her chest, but she was still running around and playing and insisting that she was fine, that she was NOT getting sick. Early Tuesday morning (as in 3 am early) she woke up to go potty—and then it took another hour to go back to sleep because she was coughing and she had a little bit of a fever. On Tuesday when she woke up she was still running a temperature and I could tell by looking at her eyes that she just didn’t feel well. But, of course, she insisted she was NOT sick. I went to work and Gigi took care of her.

When I got home she was playing, quietly, in her room. (Clue #1 that she was sick.) At dinner she picked at her food. (Clue #2.) Then, instead of eating, she laid down on the couch. (Clue # 3). When Gigi chuckled at something cute she said, she got totally offended and left the room. (#4). At bath time, she told me that she did not want to take a bath with Marlo—she would wait for me to finish with Marlo, but she would lie on her bed and “rest her eyes” while she waited. (OK, that was the clincher.)

Before Marlo even got out of the bath Joy was asleep on her bed. She didn’t wake up when I pulled her clothes off and put a little sleep shirt on her. She is hardcore, though—she would not take any Tylenol or anything to help with the fever. And that is what this is about, kind of.

Back up there at clue #2—the picking at the food part, Gigi was trying to get her to eat. And she did eat a little bit. She had a quesadilla, salad, and orange slices on her plate. She ate the orange, had a couple of bites of salad, and drank some lemonade. But then she moved on to clue #3—lying on the couch. This was also when she decided that she was not going to take any Tylenol. I tried to coax her into taking some, then I tried bribing her, but she was pretty firm on her decision, and I decided that forcing the issue might make the situation worse, so I gave up. That’s when what this is about (kinda) took place.

Gigi said, “Would you eat a popsicle?” (I didn’t even know we had any…apparently the Norwegian went and got some yesterday—they were in the freezer.) Joy lethargically said yes, a purple one. So we gave her one and she slowly and dispassionately ate it. And while she ate that grape popsicle, Gigi told this story:

“When Samantha Jean Pocket was born I went to visit the Editor. While I was there the boys, Bubba and Stump, were sick most of the time. And since it was summer and it was hot, I suggested that we give them popsicles—they would cool them down and they would be getting some liquids, too. The Editor’s husband, the Italian, said, “Gigi, popsicles are your solution for all ailments.” I told him that they cool them down, the liquids thing, and that they have less sugar than apple juice even…and so, yes, I do recommend popsicles for sick kids.” Gigi said this with a little laugh and a little shrug of the shoulders.

The whole thing—the popsicles, the story, the laugh, the shoulders was so Gigi—but one part of it reminded me of Grandma. And that was the part where the Italian commented that her solution to all ailments is popsicles. That’s what this is about. No, Grandma did not prescribe popsicles for everything also. But she did have a solution for everything and it was an ointment called Kip. I have no idea where she got it—I’ve never seen it anywhere else but her house, but maybe I’m just not looking in the right places. But that’s not the point. The point is that any bump, bruise, scrape, cut, gash, or splinter could be healed by using kip. It became a family joke—stubbed your toe? Just get some Kip. Fell off your bike and scraped your knee? Just get some Kip. Accidentally cut off your finger while chopping a salad? Just get some Kip. We joked about it, but it was very cute—and (unintentionally) funny. And now popsicles are the new Kip, thanks to Gigi’s insistence that they can cure almost anything..

I am hoping that when Joy wakes up she will feel better, the cough will be gone and the fever will have faded away. If not I will try to get her to take some Tylenol, or perhaps I’ll just give her a popsicle. (I might try to use some Kip, but I don’t know where to find it!)

Ah, wouldn’t it be nice if popsicles and Kip could heal all of life’s hurts!

Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.

I love me a big piece of cake

Grandma. She was somethin’ else. She was crafty. She was funny, even though she didn’t mean to be. She lived close to us my whole life, so we spent a lot of time with her. I guess I don’t really remember if she always said this, but later in life she’d start a lot of conversations with, “Say, wouldn’t it be fun if we (fill in the blank).” And she was usually right—whatever she had thought of was fun…

She hosted countless slumber parties at her house. She would even stay up to make “midnight snacks.” She liked to shop. She liked to attend whatever we were involved in. You could always count on her to want to go out…shopping…to eat…to do whatever. She was a party girl—but I mean that in the most lady-like way. She always had her hair styled, she always wore dresses and stockings. (She literally never wore a pair of pants.) She always carried her ‘pocketbook’ and she had a trace of a southern accent. She was every inch a lady, but she was always ready for a party. I think I got my sweet tooth from her--she was always game for whipping up some tasty treat. I didn’t know the lady that Gigi describes as being stern and strict. She was my Grandma—and she was somethin’ else.

My Grandma never spanked me. I can’t even really remember a time when she got upset with me. What I remember most is her laugh and the complete delight on her face when she’d open the door to see us standing there for a visit.

One time Gigi left the Editor and me at Grandma’s for the day. I was craving something sweet and I knew if I asked she would make something. That particular day she made a cake. And she let me eat some. She let me eat a lot, actually. When Gigi came to pick me up Grandma told her, “That little thing (I was super skinny when I was little) ate a whole cake!” and Gigi’s question was, “But why did you let her?”

My birthday was last week and my MIL brought over a cake. Not knowing that she was going to bring a cake I also made one for myself. So with two cakes in the house what’s a girl to do? Well, for starters I offered a piece to every living soul who walked through our front door. I took some to the office to share. And then my only other option—in the spirit of not being wasteful—was to cut off a sliver every time I walked through the kitchen. And even though I tried to share as much as possible, I do feel like I practically ate the whole thing.

I’d love to have Grandma back—to share a piece of cake with her…to see the look of delight on her face when she saw me…to hear her laugh. She had Alzheimer’s and Gigi took care of her, bless her heart, before she passed away. Lots of family didn’t want to visit because they said it just wasn’t her anymore. Gigi didn’t have that option. She patiently and lovingly took care of Grandma better than anyone else could. And although I was busy I tried to visit as much as I could because it WAS Grandma, just most of the time she couldn’t remember us, couldn’t access her memories to recognize her life. One day I went to visit and when I walked in her face lit up and she got that look of delight she always got and said, “Well, if it isn’t BusyBody! Say, wouldn’t it be fun if we visited awhile?” Yeah, wouldn’t it?

I miss Grandma. She was somethin’ else.

Posted by The Editor for Busy Body.

The Color Purple

At sixteen, they were sure they were meant to be together. It took them five years to realize their goal, but they married at twenty-one. She wore a blue dress with lace collar and cuffs that she made for herself on the family treadle sewing machine: He wore the best he had. They went into town and stood before the minister of the local church and vowed their vows. They went back to her Mom and Dad’s farm and her Mom had prepared a home-cooked meal and baked a cake—coconut. It was always her favorite. He helped his new father-in-law with the evening chores and, sometime, managed to pick a bouquet of wild flowers for the table. Later that evening, they walked back to their place--a house that was too old to repair properly with the means they had. The spaces between the boards of the siding and the holes in the roof occasionally afforded a view of the stars. He was not dashingly handsome nor was she ravishingly beautiful, but they knew love.

They shared a life together that encompassed most of life’s experiences: want and abundance; good times and bad; sickness and health. Fifty-one years later, he left her. She didn’t complain. She didn’t cry. She didn’t question why God had let this happen to her. Maybe I was the only one who noticed that the index finger and thumb of her right hand gripped the band of gold on her left hand as she sat quietly, in a blue dress, at the edge of his grave.

She had learned to sew as a young girl and made all of her clothes until her later years when her eyesight and manual coordination didn’t permit her to do so, and she always had a blue dress to wear to important functions or just to please him. His favorite color was red and she seemed to approve his choices. Almost every item in a house can be found in red, and he found them. Red wallpaper in the dining room, ok. Red furniture in the den, ok. Red, red, red. The only car they ever bought brand-new sported a white exterior and, yeah, a red interior. Maybe she did get tired of the color, just not of him. She had another twelve years without him and she filled them with all the things she couldn’t do with him or for him. She didn’t want to be a burden.

Eight years after he was gone, she turned eighty. I asked her if she would like a party and she got this little grin on her face and said she’d never had a party. I searched my memory and finally concluded that she was right. Through the years, we celebrated their anniversary and, also, her birthday in almost the same way each time—with a home-cooked meal and a coconut cake. Since we all enjoyed it so much (she did all the preparing), we didn’t think to change. After we three offspring married and had families of our own, we would have them and then, just her, to our homes for the same format. But a party, no. And so we started planning. At some point I asked her what her favorite color was and she said, “I don’t think I have one.” “Oh, c’mon, Mom, everyone has a favorite color.” “Well, your Dad’s was red and I always liked it too.” “So you want the color of your party to be red?” “Well, now that I think about it, I guess I do like purple.” “Well, ok, then, purple it shall be.”

It was fantastically fun to plan a party for someone who has never had one-- but who was more childlike than many children ever are. We invited the family and her very closest friends and I hoped I was up to the task of a party of this size on such short notice. We ordered a beautiful cake (that she didn’t have to bake) and had it sprayed with a lavender tint. We bought things for the house like towels and toss pillows and throw rugs and picture frames in all the shades of purple. We shopped for a new outfit for her that turned out to be a purple dress and a lilac sweater. She was pleased. And even more pleased that she had thought of a color that so delighted her.

Then, my husband and I had to take a long weekend trip all the way across the country to attend a family celebration for one of his family. It was a very emotional trip because he had not seen many of his family members for years. Memories and almost forgotten feelings abounded. On the plane trip home, I remember thinking, well, I am very tired, but at least most of the things are taken care of for Mom’s party next week.

The answer machine light was flashing when we got home and I thought it was broken from the number of calls it was registering. As I started listening, it became apparent that people were coming to the party that I didn’t know. Mom had used my absence to invite every group at her church in which she participated or ever had participated, and all the senior citizen groups at the community center and everyone in her neighborhood and at the grocery store and that did her hair and that delivered her mail and that read her utility meters and that mowed her lawn and anyone else that she happened to notice. They were all coming. I went over to her house. “Mom, do you know that you are going to have 2 plus people for every year of your life?” “Well, honey, won’t that be something?”

And something it was. In my memory’s eye and in the pictures of that day, everything is in a haze of purple. What color is love? In all my growing up years, it was blue and red. Is it just a coincidence that together…they make purple?


Posted by The Editor for Gigi.

The Grandma Chronicles

Grandma is Gigi's mother, The Editor's & Busy Body's maternal grandmother. Gigi lived within 10 miles of her house her whole life, except when she went off to college for a few years.

I miss her all the time. Not in a crying, sentimental way; but in the way you miss something you never thought you’d have to learn to live without. On holidays, I miss her most: This is one story about her at this Christmas season.

My mom was a high-maintenance person. I don’t know if she planned to demand so much of my time and attention or if it just happened that way. She had a soft voice with a touch of the south in her speech and she cajoled more than demanded. And so it was that I was at her house one afternoon to take her somewhere to do something. She had combed her hair, but it wasn’t smoothed down in the back. I was standing in the doorway of the bathroom, willing her to hurry up, and realized she was only combing what she could see in the mirror. She hadn’t turned on the light and it aggravated me that she wasn’t ready to go and it was probably her fault because she couldn’t see what she was doing. I took the comb from her and started to comb the places she had missed.

She was given to saying things that were out of context and made sense only after I searched through my memory bank to figure out what she was saying. She came up with one of those phrases, “Honey, don’t forget me.” Oh, forevermore. I am here. I am ready to do what you need to do, want to do, have a whim to do. Please don’t guilt trip me with some of that mother talk. And so I said something impatient like, Don’t be silly. How could I forget you, you’re my mother.

The semi-darkness of the bathroom was a symbol that I didn’t recognize or chose to ignore: A sign of the darkness that was about to overtake her life, and also, mine. All the signs were there, I guess I wanted to ignore them. I would rather have been impatient and aggravated than have to come to the realization of what was happening. Now, in retrospect, I think she knew. I don’t think she meant that I shouldn’t forget her, but that she didn’t want to forget me; although that’s exactly what happened.

I wish I had said something profound to her that day, something that would have conveyed to her the depth of my feelings for her. I wish I had hugged her and said, “Oh, mom, you are unforgettable.”

Although we eventually had to have a full-time caregiver for her, she still needed more time and attention than we could provide, and someone told me about a day care at the senior center. They would send a van to pick her up and bring her home. There were activities and special entertainments and outings and a hot lunch. It sounded ideal to me: She didn’t want to go. It turned into a battle of determined wills.

Her favorite admonition to me all my life was to be a lady.
When I was in my forties, she even decoupaged the above plaque for me about the value of being ladylike. She was sincere in her role modeling and so I sincerely tried to meet her expectations.

She remained lucid in whatever subject she wanted to be lucid in, and she reminded me –often—that she had never gone out looking tacky and I better not do that to her now. She had always worn skirts and when she went out somewhere she wore “stockings”. But trying to put panty hose on a flailing, resisting mother as she stiffened her legs and rotated her ankles was impossibility. Trying to get her out of the house “bare-legged” was more impossible. I had an aversion to knee-highs because they were unbecoming, certainly not ladylike, with skirts.

Victoria’s Secret had beautiful thigh-highs with lacy, filmy tops. Their target market was not to those in their eighties, but I thought they might work. She loved them. She valued them. She wanted to wear them. So every day she was dressed up in the dresses she had been saving for “special occasions”, her long string of faux pearls were wrapped around her neck and her thigh highs were smoothed and a beautiful pair of slippers put on the feet that had become so twisted that hard shoes no longer fit, and she was off for the senior center where, because of the way she insisted she be dressed or the imperiousness with which she bossed everyone around, they called her the Duchess--and she never corrected them.

We each had won our battle or so I thought.

Until one morning, when the caregiver was given some time off and I was “on duty”, she decided it was payback time for some of my early years shenanigans—at least I think that’s why she acted so willfully. I couldn’t please her with anything, and then she informed me (selective lucidity) that she could dress herself. I laid her clothes on the bed and said, fine, I will go and have the cup of coffee that I missed while I was trying to help you. I clicked the bedroom door shut (knowing that no matter what her mental or physical state, I would not get away with slamming it) and waited a sufficient amount of time to prove my point—that she needed me.

Opening the bedroom door, I gasped. Mom, my mom, had managed to put on those thigh highs perfectly: The thigh highs and nothing else. In her diaper and thigh highs, she was the embodiment of justified indignation. I said the first thing that popped into my head, you cannot go to school looking like that, it isn’t ladylike, (a direct quote from her to me on countless numbers of my school mornings.)

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was struck by their ridiculousness. I started to laugh and the laughter built and built. She sat down on the side of the bed with her arms crossed and defiantly tried to stare me down. I laughed louder. I sat down beside her and put my arm around her and we rocked from side to side, but I was the only one laughing.

Alzheimer’s doesn’t have a sense of humor—at least, not to the one suffering its terrorist take-over. "Oh, mom, you are so unforgettable."

Posted by The Editor for Gigi