My grandfather was kicking my butt again in gin rummy when Grandma announced the train out in the cold flat distance. 'The train whistle is such a sad sound.' I agreed totally, but what is it about a train whistle exactly that makes it sound so sad? 'It's because it means that someone is going far from home' said grandma.
They hate to leave the house. Leaving home means wrapping up ankles and packing oxygen tanks, and getting a bath from their son, and having to put on a clean pair of pants that aren't your favorite, and trimming wiley ear hairs, and sitting in sterile sniffling waiting rooms to get poked on my vague suspicious doctors who grind out new rules that ban all of your favorite foods and give daughter's-in-law something new to nag you about.
I've been here in this Kansas farm house with them for two days; my grandma, grandpa, and me. There are three things that we are all of us obsessed with: what day is today? what pills to we take? and are we loosing our minds?
What day is today is a game that starts very early in the morning. Grandma wakes at 5am, gets herself ready, and then goes out to the dark driveway to collect her morning paper. She unfolds the paper, collects the rubberband, and reads the only thing that interests her-what day is today, and then sets the paper aside by the phone.
When we wake up behind her, she announces it.
At 6:30 Aunt Joyce calls to ask- what day is today? Grandma is ready and runs for the paper (she's already forgotten what day is today) and proudly claims the answer.
Aunt Joyce might stop by later; might call later for pill reminders. We don't want to be caught off guard, and so we are always talking about what day is today. Thursday? Saturday? What day is tomorrow? Or was yesterday? But even more importantly what... Aunt Joyce pulled one over on us this afternoon! She asked us the year! We all looked at each other for the answers confused. None of us knew!
What pills do we take is also incredibly popular, and everyone that comes by is asking 'What pills should you take?' and it is very serious. We have to remember if this moment in time should call for a pill (major daily events do:breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime). If we are eating, we must decide what this time is, and 2 out of 3 must concur. Next we have to decide who's case is blue and who's is white. 2 of 3 again. Actually consuming a pill means yet another roundtable discussion about what day is today. So, we open up the corresponding window to the corresponding event, for the corresponding day, for the corresponding consumer, and then maybe there is a little pill there, but maybe there is not. (Sometimes when we three stare into the bottom of an empty window, we all get quiet and a little sad, or else, maybe we start to doubt our calculations somewhere along the way.)
Which leads us on into 'Are we loosing our minds?'. Grandma argues with herself mainly on this, and sometimes yes, she is certain of it, but then other times she forgets. Sometimes we all have to remind her, convince her again, that 'Yes, it is true, you are loosing your mind' and that this is what the yellow pill she takes twice a day is for. I always chime in that two pills a day is an awful lot of having to remember to take a pill for bad memory.
My grandfather takes the best position. He's not accountable for any of our responsibilities. Having been nearly mute for 30 years, we all just assume that his sanity remains intact. Sometimes I think his little act a brilliant stroke of genius contrived those many years ago. Everything he wishes for, magically appears at his fingers.
I'm learning a lot, and I'm exhausted. Up at 5 and to bed at 9:30. Who comes by what day for what, which oxygen tanks are full and which are empty. How it takes half a dozen people to keep up this little house with it's two old occupants. People to bathe them, people to clean house, people to arrange and track Dr.'s appointments, a record keeper and secretary, an accountant for bills, a handyman for the house, a shopper for the food, a time keeper and pharmacist for the meds. Everyone is working and devoted and sincere and still, I see it breakdown at what day is today? what pills do I take? and am I going crazy?
I don't think grandma and grandpa's task force realize how it really falls apart when they aren't here (the few hours no one is). They don't know that a phone call to remind them to take meds doesn't ensure the right ones will be taken. That just because the oxygen tank is full and the machine pumps the noise of human breath throughout the house, does not mean grandpa will remember that he needs to wear it. I won't say anything to anyone, because maybe they already know. The aunts and uncles can't keep this up forever even if grandma and grandpa's bodies could.
So really we're here all three obsessed w/one thing- not dying. With all the dust from dead skin, the smell of decay, the plastic toilet seat lifters, the walkers, the tubes, the hearing aides, bifocals, false teeth, shower chairs, and lazy-boy lifters, I just can't understand why not.
Why again does that train whistle sound so sad?