I've always been attracted to listening to elderly people since I was very young, and would visiting my 70 year old neighbour next door (she looked like 90 to me!). My grandmothers died a few years ago, and there was Electa. I knew her as my best freind's step-grandmother, and visited her one day after she returned from a long bout at the hospital. She invited me back and, enthralled with her kindness and wit, I'd keep returning!
She'd regale me with stories about sledding with her sisters in their l920s childhood, about acting in plays, getting blinded in one eye at a hockey game (but that never stopped her from reading), how much she loved her sisters, and how she wrote letters to the Santa Claus she heard on the radio as a child and told him how good she'd been all year. Then, with a sly smile, she told me how years later, they'd get married, and ironically she found out he was the Santa from the radio days. And a Jewish one, at that.
We watched epic wildlife films on my laptop, rejoiced when Obama won (although in Canadian politics she was a staunch Conservative and I was Liberal), she kindly made me dinners when she could barely eat them herself, pestered me each week to finish editing my book, then drilled me on how I was going to market it. She dreamt of the day she could watch Prince William get married, then played back her memories of the wedding of Elizabeth.
She discussed reiki and yoga with me, questioned how they worked, asked whether they brought it bad spirits as her hairdresser (a Jews-for-Jesus follower) had scared the living daylights out of her that she'd go to "hell" (then proceeded to throw the reiki book I'd given Electa across the room), should she even entertain the idea that these were good for her. I told Electa that Jews don't believe in hell.
Sometimes she believed her, sometimes she didn't. But then her feistiness kicked in. She'd gotten up the guts to tell Chris that she was not really either a good Christian or Jew if she kept trying to enforce her beliefs on others. And proudly told me so. It's good she'd finally taken action, as I was short of being tempted to do so myself!
She'd anger only when I was late, or brought her flowers or chocolates, the few joys she had left in life. But she believed she had something more, and so right she was. She had books, the best gift one can have and, possibly being the most voracious reader in the world of 90 year-olds, was determined to regain her eyesight against all odds. And, this year, blessed with the "flick" of a laser at an opthomology appointment, she did, showing me the real meaning of tenacity in action.
At the Jewish New Year, in September, she was fine, or as fine as she could be since she's eaten very little for meals, the past couple years. But she was at the house of my friend, her grand-daughter, eating and talking with the rest of us, and dressed in her best.
But during Thanksgiving, she fell ill and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital. Her 'nightmare' had come true. The last thing she wanted to do was end up in a hospital, she'd told me several times, as she'd been there ten years ago and almost didn't emerge. "The next time, I'll never get out," she told me prophetically, and unfortunately, she may be right.
It's difficult to see someone in this state; a functional brain in a body with its own agenda. And it is no less superfluous to her. "I don't know what's happened to me. I don't know what's wrong." Sometimes she believes she's immortal, sometimes she's aware of the inevitable. Neither of us can handle the reality, nor well-believe it.
I've chanted for her, I've sent her reiki, I've sent her metta. Maybe it's all helped the quality of her last days, but after seeing her as my grandmother was, in her last hours, gasping for breath (with the odd few brilliant sentences emerging from her), I cannot be sure. Maybe I should have done more or could have done more. I will never know. It was both of our dreams that she would live at home, a rare Toronto condo with a view only of trees, until the end of her days. But it was not to be.
The most we can do for another is what we'd wish would be done for us. I get ready to leave for the last time, leaving her small, withered body on the bed, as more visitors crowd the room, hoping that I will just be able to visit her in my dreams and in the visions of my waking-state. Knowing that she'll soon be out of pain, and with Santa Claus once again.
"Don't worry, I told her," as I held her thin, leathery hand, and brushed pink. velvety, flower petals against it. "You are a wonderful person. Follow the light when you see it. And call me whenever you'd like. I will reply. I love you."
To which she replied faintly, "I love you too." And, in her last-ditch effort to impart love to those she couldn't see in the room, cried out, "Be happy, and have a wonderful summer." To which the caregiver and I drew a big breath.
May she as well, in the summer of her between-lives, before we may meet again. But for now, I will breathe for her, and send her blessings, through my grieving yogic heart.
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