Digging Up The Bones

August 3rd, 2009 | Posted by bone digger

She must have been having mini strokes, because my mother, who had moved to Ohio to be closer to her parents at that time, says grandma had been changing little by little over a year or so.

I loved my grandmother. And she loved me!

I don’t think she meant to, but she played favorites, and out of the three of us that mom got custody of when dad split, I was it. The favorite. The first born. The chosen one.

When grandma took us kids to the grocery store, I got to pick the kind of cookies she bought. When we were punished for any reason – even if it was my fault – Linda was sent to one bedroom, Greg to another, and I was confined to the living room…. watching the TV program of my choice.

It was a hard childhood.

The special treatment I received caused a lot of dissension between the three of us when we were young. Even today, when it is still laughingly mentioned that I was her favorite, I can still hear a smidgen of resentment underneath the joking.

Hey! What’s the big deal? I don’t have any emotional scars. Maybe a few more fat cells than the other two from my bigger food and desert portions, but I had a great childhood.

Anyway, Grandma was a lovely person. Very proper and particular about her surroundings and her hygiene.

That’s what makes this story kind of sad…

Mom said it started with grandma getting forgetful. She forgot to dust. Then she slacked up on of the house cleaning. My grandfather, who usually dried dishes after she washed them, took on the washing part too. Finally, she stopped tending to her daily hygiene too and started spending most of her time lying on the couch in a wrinkled house dress, watching TV and eating candy – Brach’s Bridge Mix was her favorite. She loved candy. Always had fancy candy jars full of chocolates and hard candies with those soft chewy centers.

My grandparent’s United Methodist Church, was having one of their Wednesday night suppers.

I can remember them taking me to those suppers ever since I was a child. Over the years the church and town location had changed, but not the night. Wednesday was the night, and my grandparents always went. My grandfather decided that this dinner was no exception. His wife needed to get out a bit and the suppers were something she had always enjoyed.

They were going.

He said he coaxed her off the couch, helped her wash and dress, then drove her to the church.

The were half way through the dinner, when for one reason or the other he decided that he needed to take her home. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe she wasn’t feeling good or maybe she was acting strangely or something.

He stood up, helped her up from her chair and guided her carefully across the floor toward the exit.

That’s when the unthinkable thing happened. The thing that would have embarrassed my grandmother to death if she had been in control of her senses.

It turned out that when my grandfather had helped her dress for the dinner, he forgot one item.

Her underwear.

Those big, white grandmother underwear that girls shudder to think of wearing as a teen, but that they buy when they’re older because they feel so much more comfortable than those tiny bikini things that creep up into your butt crack and cause you to just plain suffer all day, if you don’t keep tugging them out.

So she had no panties on and of all the moments her body could have chosen, it picked that brief walk, from the chair to the exit, to download.

This story was related to me by my grandfather, one year after my grandma’s death. Even then, he was still so upset at losing his life-mate that he told it as a matter-of-fact thing, instead of as an embarrassing incident.

“She did it while she was walking? On the church floor?” I said.

My grandfather sighed. “Yes. She hadn’t been herself for quite some time. She couldn’t help it.”

I felt embarrassment for my, then deceased grandmother, and empathy for the sad man who sat across the dinner table from me, but I couldn’t help myself.

I had to ask.

“So what did you do?”

“What could I do?” He said. “I took her home.”

“You mean you left … it … there? For someone else to clean up?”

“I had to. Your grandmother wasn’t feeling very good. The church members knew she’d been sick. I’m sure they understood.”

Did they?

Even though I know my grandmother would have been horrified at what she did, I can’t help but giggle as I write this. I’d love to have seen the looks on the other diner’s faces.

What would you do if you went to a church supper and saw someone walk out, then notice a trail of poop on the floor? Would you be horrified? Would you laugh? Snatch the kids up and march out of the church? Or just grab up a napkin and try to dispose of the evidence as quickly as possible.

I wonder what they did.

Anyone for desert?

My grandmother died not long afterward from a massive stroke. It was quick and merciful.

My grandfather followed two years later.

On Wednesday afternoon, the day before he died, he ordered flowers to be placed on her grave, come Sunday. Flowers to mark her dead for two years.

Thursday evening he yelled from the bathroom, for my mother who luckily was visiting at the time.

She said his tone made her run and she found him kneeling by the commode. Blood was everywhere. Blood he had vomited.

He looked up at her. His eyes full of fear. “This isn’t very good. Is it?”

Those turned out to be the last words he said to her.

She called 911 and he was rushed to the emergency room where he passed away, just after midnight, from a ruptured, abdominal aortic aneurysm.

Once again. Quick and merciful.

The flowers he had ordered for my grandmother’s grave arrived Sunday afternoon at the same time the flowers my mother ordered for his passing arrived at the funeral home for his memorial service.

Both of my grandparents died on November 8th. Exactly 2 years apart. To the day!

Coincidence?

I still remember standing with my grandfather, at my grandmother’s grave, and him pointing his cane at the empty plot next to her. “That’s where I’ll lie…”

Bone Digger

Tags: grandma, grandpa