Grandpa: The one where I cry

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I am in Illinois visiting grandparents. I haven’t seen my maternal grandfather in two years. He’s a stubborn old man, who thinks we’re all out to get him and make his life complete crap. By being this way and not working with us, he’s made his life complete crap. I try to hold onto this when I visit him, because inevitably I feel so guilty when I leave him- like I should give up my life to make him happy.

The first day I saw him was on Sunday, and it didn’t go very well. I went to his nursing home to pick him up. When I walked in, I heard wailing and screaming and groaning. There were bodies of people in a sitting area- but none of them were actually there. They stared at nothing, with blank faces- moaning and groaning. A woman was in a plastic walker/wheelchair- basically a plastic cage on wheels and was trying to move, but was stuck on something and she was crying out.

I found a nurse’s station and asked for my grandpa. The nurse took me to the lunch room and spoke to one of his friends. “Harold, do you know where Bob is?” “He took a pass.” “Do you know where he went?” “To the Oakley Inn. He left at 10:00.” The nurse directed me on how to get there.

As I was leaving, I had to walk past the sitting area again. “Hello!” “Hello!” “Hello!” some ladies started screaming and reached out for me. I’m very sensitive to energies and I just couldn’t handle it. I wasn’t prepared for this. I felt myself being depleted quickly, and I pictured the wraiths on Harry Potter – or that hellish place on What Dreams May Come, where people go when they commit suicide.

I found the Oakley Inn and there were four older gentlemen up at the bar. One was extremely short and hunched over, barely taller than the back of his chair. I went up to him and put my hand on his back. My grandpa turned around. I barely recognized him. He was so old and brittle. His face was expressionless with a hint of desperation. He looked like the people in the nursing home.

“Grandpa!” I hugged him, and he kissed my cheek. I took him to a table – he uses a walker now and he’s hunched over like a candy cane.

I asked my grandpa questions, and he kept saying, “Oh!” There didn’t seem to be any spark in him- just a ghost. I asked him if he got my letters.

“Letters? Who are you?” He asked.

Fuck.

Well, if he has dementia, thank god for that because he wouldn’t be aware of the shithole he lives in. “Grandpa, it’s Mountain Lover!”

Recognition washed over his face and he gave a light chuckle. “It is you! Yes, I got your letters.”

Then I realized he was drunk. It was barely 11:00 a.m. I tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t hear me very well. He no longer had glasses, so he couldn’t see. He sat with his head down, and I was unable to see his face because of his baseball cap. He told me it was Pearl Harbor day, and he barely missed it. He couldn’t go over with his fleet because his paperwork was messed up. And he kept asking me if I wanted a shot or a beer. “No grandpa, it’s not even noon yet . . .”

Then he asked me why my mom and aunt don’t want him in Colorado. Why they hated him. He told me he wants desperately to be in Colorado, living with us. My sister and I were the only good things in his life.

I started crying. I felt so guilty, so ashamed. I need to come out here more often, even though I can’t afford it. I was an awful granddaughter. I looked away, focusing on the people at the bar and listening to them talk about how it’s a shame my grandpa didn’t have his hearing aid. It doesn’t seem to help him hear me anyway.

I needed to go- I couldn’t handle seeing him this way. Neither one of us was getting anything out of this, both of us ashamed and silent. We made plans for me to take him to breakfast the next day (so he could sober up). Then I left. I called my mom and relayed all I saw that morning.

She called me back a little later, angry at her sister for not telling her that the nursing home offered to help us transfer him to Colorado. I’m not to say anything to him, but will talk to the administrator after my visit. I’m not optimistic. Bureaucratic red tape and federal public assistance being administered through counties is a very difficult, if not impossible, thing to navigate. Eldercare is an area of law I know little about- just that it’s difficult and sucks.

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Filed under Family, Travel

Tags: grandparents, Nursing Homes, Old Age