Family

Sunday we spent a few hours visiting my husbands grandparents. We haven't always had a great relationship with them. They are not easy people. But now they are very old people.

I was a bit anxious on our way there, my body, so in tune already to just knowing that it would be tense and stressful was feeling achey and tight, butterflies had settled into my belly and I was consiously trying to focus on having a good attitude. While it has always been so important to me to be liked, I most often find I am completely incapable of masking my feelings or faking kindness... oddly enough I can be this way with strangers, but when it comes to family or friends, I am a failure at trying to suck up.

During the 18 months we were living in WA, grandma and grandpa have seriously slipped. No wonder, I mean, grandpa is 99 and grandma just a few years younger. But when we left, aside from being deaf and having some minor forgetfulness and a little trouble getting in and out of low chairs, they seemed so hearty and ageless. We were gone for 18 months. We've seen them once since we've been back and on this day, our second visit, it was heartbreaking. I had no trouble being kind or gracious. My heart was softened and humbled to be with them. There was something so pure about them in spite of all thier frailty, or maybe because of it.

There were moments when you knew that grandma's brain was just spinning and desperately searching for clues as to where she was or who was in the room. She would do things and then people would laugh and you could see that she thought, "Oh! This is what I am supposed to do! It makes them happy when I do this!" and so she would repeat it or do something similar - like pretend to punch grandpa or tell my husband "I hate you!" with a big smile as she pinched his cheeks. She was forever asking who the children were, who the spouses belonged to, and at one point was asking which ones were her own children. Grandpa is more 'here', but there were times when this vacant look would fill his eyes and his mouth was unsure of whether to smile or not and he would companionably nod his head but was certainly thinking other thoughts.

Now, if I wanted to, I could take you through the hideous humor that is this family, all the dysfunction and yelling and nagging and the pain under the surface... I could make you laugh until you cried with some of the idiosyncrasies and ridiculousness of it all. But I'm just not in that mood. I can't help but feel so soft, so broken almost, with tenderness for one old man and one old woman who did all they could, did the best they could, to live. Their histories are amazing and miraculous. Their journey to America, their childhoods and adulthood and how they met and how they fell in love and the family they raised. It may not be a pretty picture from the outside, but all I can think about is what will MY great grandchildren be thinking or saying about ME someday? Will anyone feel tender and forgiving towards me? I know I will need forgiveness. Who EVER does everything the right way? Who EVER gets through marraige and parenting without hurting a child or spouse somehow? But don't we try our best to do right, to encourage and love and shape our children and our marraiges? We mean well... and so did these frail old people. They meant well. In spite of the undercurrents of pain and anger and fiery anguish, my husband is a product of what they produced and let me tell you, he is wonderful, a true gift. His cousin J is a gift to all of society and he also is a direct product from these two ancients. So I guess that 'meaning well' can sometimes be enough... if you follow it through down the line.

Grandpa and Grandma... we love you.