The good one
My wife's grandmother celebrated a birthday on Wednesday, the Bad One. The Bad One is what she called it, and out of respect for her that is all the information I will relate regarding said birthday. She deserves that respect.
She deserves that respect because she is strong, as strong as any woman of any age I've known. Scoliosis has given her the posture of someone carrying a weight without hope of relieft. She suffers from almost constant pain. She is forced to take several medications for various internal maladies, medications which often cause her greater pain. She has been without her husband for many years, a husband obviously missed greatly by her and everyone else that knew him; he is even missed by this writer, who never had the opportunity to meet him. My wife says he would have like me a lot - we would have spoken about music endlessly.
These physical and emotional trials need no introduction upon meeting her - they are plainly projected in the eyes of a woman well aware of their heft. They become clearer when you hear others speak of her past - she was mod, she raced cars and motorbikes, she tore her family away from that backward place where her family had lived for so long in order to raise her daughter in a proper way. The verve has now been replaced by a bitterness which is difficult to deny her after hearing her speak of her own past.
And yet through it all she is strong. I have a hard time thinking about it all without feeling the weight myself. She lives with it every day, but in her own way she drives on. Her voice seems unaffected by the weight - her opinions are often in direct contrast to my own, and yet even in my frustration I am often thrilled by the energy with which she delivers them. She has had absolutely no use for the attitude towards technology so prevalent among those of an advanced age, completely embracing the computer and all its advantages in communication.
The Bad One had been looming for the last few weeks, and it seemed as if it would insidiously break her down. Perhaps she had hoped that the Bad One would never come, that the weight would break her before it did. It was hard to watch.
Oh, but what a miracle a little kindness can create. When my wife and I met the family for an early dinner, there was a smile on the grandmother's face like none I had seen, yet immediately I knew it had to be the smile that was, the smile of the girl on the motorbike. Red roses were sent from a friends. There were several well-wishing phone calls. There was lots of candy. From my wife a toe ring, something she'd always wanted - no ordinary grandmother for sure. Dinner kept piling on the happiness. The waitress was friendly as could be, the food was enjoyable, and how could she not smile when the waitress brought her a live lobster with a birthday card clenched in its claws?
She deserved it all.
By the time dinner was over I could not see my brother-in-law walking her out to the van. What I saw was a woman casting aside the Bad One and all the other weight, strapping on a pair of riding boots and racing away someplace.
Posted by Joel at 1/26/2006 11:25:00 PM
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