My wife, my daughter and my granddaughter were at Bead Gypsy in Roseau, the other day. As the three of them wandered about the interesting shop there in Roseau, I meandered into a adjoining room, and happened upon a book with a little blonde-haired girl and her black dog with a red scarf around its neck, on its cover. The book's title, “my grandmother asked me to tell you she’s sorry,” written by Fredrik Backman, was written entirely in low-case font and intrigued me at once. I picked it up, read but a few sentences and immediately thought that its main character, 7-year old ‘Elsa,’ resembled my 4-year old granddaughter ‘Ginny’ even though she doesn’t have a dog, — and bought the book.
What a great work of fiction. I’ve recommended it to several people. It reminds me of Ginny, because of Elsa’s extensive use of vocabulary that, in my low estimation probably, most four-year olds don’t employ so rationally on a daily basis. The things Ginny comes up with brings a smile to our faces all the time. Being raised among adults at home, and involved with activities in and out of school, has broadened her language knowledge base exponentially, and it's evident.
Ginny and her mother visited us for a few days; a feat they achieved twice now in Ginny’s short life, when we have not yet visited them in their year-old ’new’ house south of the Twin Cities. Luckily the weather more or less cooperated, with a few days of sun mixed with an equal number of cloudy-rainy days that contributed nicely to a going-places/visiting people activity that grandma and I are, admittedly slack at doing, but will be improving upon as weather cooperates.
The four of us had a good time, especially Ginny and Grandma, who immediately hit it off and spent each day engaged in huge musical and stickhorse/life-saving productions throughout our little ‘deer shack’ home along the ‘crick.’ Where grandma got her renewed energy I have no idea, but I think all the hype of Ginny coming to visit us played into it somehow, explaining all the chaotic house-cleaning and dusting off of the many children's toys that she’s squirreled away in dormers and under beds and in translucent Tupperware totes that occurred in the pending days.
The ‘granny’ character, in the book, I had thought could be a combination of all three of Ginny’s ‘grannies,’ pretty easily with just a wee bit of imagination thrown in, but further into the book, I now admit after finishing it, it would be a stretch. Still, these grannies are pretty great all-in-all. Jackie being exceptional, of course.
Ah, but this book I wasn’t intending to buy that day, or any day, I was quite moved by, perhaps more so after a planned visit that we made to the Warroad Care Center to visit Ginny’s great-grandmother, whom I've known these forty years hence; our lengthy social separation understandable. Greeting her at her lunch table, her little soft hand in mine, she looked at me with a suggestion of possible recognition, a slow smile coming upon her hesitant lips, maybe thinking I was someone from a TV game show, or a fellow ancient like Richard Nixon or Joe Biden …
The elderly who can’t readily express themselves affect us, and whereas I sympathize, I'm at a loss to know what it is they're trying to say; it may be equally frustrating at their end. Some convey it, some cannot.
Great grandma was naturally drawn to Ginny, recognizing her playful energy in, on, and behind over-stuffed chairs in one of the large comfortable TV rooms or happily running down windowed aisles; Ginny’s mother told her to slow down and "Come visit 'Gramma Doh-doh," referring to her grandma’s nickname she coined when she was a little girl like Ginny. Dodo asked about her husband; if we had seen him; if we knew where he was. And we did, but didn’t go into any length of explaining he was at their home and not there with her in that home.
As my daughter pushed her grandmother’s wheelchair toward the windows at the far end of an aisle, I met a octogenarian man happily following them at some distance. He wore a smile and a camouflaged cap with the name “Donnie” printed on its face. The aids enthusiastically greeted him as he passed their workstation. He took little steps, walking without a cane or walker, holding himself relatively straight. Smiling, with his eyes and the upturned corners of his mouth, he stopped and looked at me then tried to say something, motioning to me that ’this’ was his room. Seeing my daughter’s party moving on, I took his invitation and followed him in.
“This, is my room,” he seemed to proudly say about a stark but spacious private room with large north-facing windows overlooking a grassy area of small trees and faraway fields. In the corner was a shelf with family photographs of his wife and children, he told me, I think. On the wall at the end of his bed was an old photograph of himself in the mid- 1950s or early 1960s, I’m guessing, with a handsome whitetail buck laying atop a vehicle, he had shot using what appeared as a recurve-style bow. “Is that a recurve bow? I asked him. “A Fred Bear?”
Knowing some elder minds can sometimes recall memories easier long term than short term, I asked him if he had shot the deer and tell me how it happened. He seemed happy to tell me the story, as I suspected he might. Stammering, he managed just half a distinct sentence before losing it altogether. I listened, looking him in the eyes all the while, seeing him try to articulate what he could not …
I said, “Sometimes it just all falls apart, doesn't it?” He nodded, smiling. About that time, my daughter, her grandmother, and Ginny walked by the door, so I said goodbye to Donnie. “Thanks for the visit,” I told him, shaking his hand gently, and left to join the others.
It’s good to be nice to old people.
ReplyDeleteYou might be one yourself some day.
Oh, I've achieved that, and every time I'm treated kindly by a younger person I let them know I appreciate it, for one day more than likely, I won't be able to do it.
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