My Grandmother's Rebuttal

"Is not wisdom found among the aged? Does not life bring understanding?"
-- Job 12:12

I remember a brief time when my grandmother was well. My brother and I used to see her nearly every day. My mother would drop us off at our grandparents’ house on her way to work, and we would watch The Bozo Show and Woody Woodpecker until it was time to head to school. In that hour or so, my grandmother would find time to check our fingernails; no girl would want to hold our hands on the playground if we had dirty fingernails, she would say. For five minutes we would battle, our finger funk clearly too treasured a thing to cede without a tantrum. Eventually, we would relent, though our grandmother would have to do all the work. We slumped in our chairs, or hands dangling lifeless at the end of our arms, while she worked away with her toothpick. I wish I could say her tenacity kept my fingernails habitually dirt-free through the rest of my life. Sadly, I cannot. I will say this, though: I am constantly aware of their condition.

When she wasn’t harassing the Rockwell boys about poor grooming habits, my grandmother smoked in the kitchen. For some reason, I cannot recall that specific image, though I am certain of the practice. When I think of the habit that crippled her later life, I seem to only recall the purse: the tan leather pouch that housed her packs, with its external pocket for any number of rotating lighters. I remember it sitting on the kitchen table next to her as she snuffed out her last cigarettes before taking us to school. When I reached junior high, our my grandmother was no longer available to take us to school, the years of smoking having caught up with her. Emphysema spoiled her lungs, sending her to the hospital for an extended stay, the trauma permanently weakened her heart. We didn’t lose her then, but I can only imagine how close we came.

For the next several years she battled her own fierce pride, refusing to accept that she could no longer manage as she once had. At the start of my sophomore year in high school, she took me shopping for new clothes. Instead of letting me or my grandfather push her around the mall in a wheelchair, she walked; in most of the stores she sat outside the dressing rooms as I browsed, too winded to make the rounds with me. I would bring back an armful of clothes, and she would express her opinion when I came out.

As time moved on, it became harder and harder for my grandmother to get out of the house. She may have attended some early football games, but I can’t be sure. I know that once the temperature dropped late in the season she could no longer handle it. She didn’t miss my plays, though. Especially the musicals. She used to force my brother and I to see the Music Guild’s productions each summer, and I’m sure she took some credit when her grandson hit the big stage for “Luck Be a Lady.” But sadly, as her grandchildren’s programs, games, and exhibitions grew more frequent, her health forced her own attendance into decline.

Still, there was one place where her attendance was perfect. Every Sunday morning, my grandmother went to church. For a time, when I was searching for my own path through the religious experience, I regularly attended with them. I enjoyed the experience while it lasted. I watched my grandfather’s devotion to his wife as he wheeled her to a special, reserved seat. I noticed the glimmer in both their eyes when they got to introduce their grandson to their friends. I smiled listening to my grandfather roar through the hymns, projecting his booming voice around the church. I still cherish those memories, even with no place in my heart for the services themselves.

I never could get a strong read on my grandmother on those precious Sundays. She sat quietly next to me in her wheelchair, her hands folded sweetly in her lap. The faintest smile always spread across her face – not a smile of elation, but of pleasant contentment. As my grandfather took fervid sermon notes on one side of me, my grandmother simply listened, smiling, as she soaked up The Word. She always thanked me for coming after worship, as if it were a trouble for me to be there. But I relished that time in the church, when she only spoke in smiles.

I loved making my grandmother smile. The way she smiled each time I came in the door for a visit… I felt unworthy of her joy. And few laughs will ever match hers. She didn’t just laugh at my jokes, as is the common response to humor. Most of her laugh represented her delight in the comic. She never laughed specifically because I said something funny, but because her grandchild had said something funny. It’s a subtle difference I only now recognize.

Before I moved to Florida, I went to visit her. My dad had told me she wasn’t well, but I had been hearing that since the eighth grade. My grandmother had never been well, per se, but after ten years of edge-of-death talk I had convinced myself that my grandmother would toe the line forever.

Seeing her on that visit only helped confirm that belief. She sat in a recliner next to the window, her oxygen machine and her Bible by the side of her chair. We talked about my plans, and she expressed how proud she was of me. She expressed her optimism about my move, and told me to make the best of it. I promised I would, and before I left I gave her a hug and she kissed me on the cheek and told me she loved me. I returned the sentiment in the faint, uncomfortable way that young men often do, and I said good-bye.

Two weeks after my move, my grandmother went into the hospital. A week later she passed away. I didn’t go home for the funeral, and I only now regret it. In three days, I will return home for the first time since my grandmother’s death. Even still I imagine her in the house, and I know I am ill-prepared for the moment when I will walk into my grandparents’ living room and realize the person who always got my first hug is no longer there. The rest of my family has had time to grieve, to share the loss with each other, but I know that my awareness of my grandmother’s death has yet to crystallize into a conscious acceptance.

My life up to this point has been blessed with limited tragedy. I lost three great-grandmothers before I was old enough to comprehend their deaths. Until now, my greatest loss had been my cousin Joey, an absolute sparkplug of a kid who was born with a tragic heart condition and died when I was eight. It was a devastating loss for my entire family and especially devastating for my grandmother.

As painful as Joey’s loss was at the time, as my grandmother looked upon her own death, he became her greatest solace.

If asked to rank the strongest people I have ever met, I would not rank my grandmother near the top. That says nothing of her character, but only the wheelchair, and the oxygen, the images that taint the enormity of a person’s strength. But in her final days, my grandmother rocketed to the top of that list.

My brother spoke to her one last time over the phone, and on the day of her funeral he shared his conversation with me.

“She said she was ready,” he told me. “She told me if it was time for her to go, then she would be up in heaven with Joey.”

As a devastated family surrounded her in the hospital, my grandmother smiled. She was content. She had been sick for so long, waiting for the inevitable day, that when it finally came she greeted it with unimaginable courage and grace. I can only hope to face death in such a fashion.

A week ago I wrote a rather inflammatory entry about the worthiness of faith in modern society. I have been thinking of my grandmother ever since. That essay would have horrified her. I still stand by my statements. I still feel completely justified in my opinions. However, my grandmother’s death has been their greatest rebuttal.

On her deathbed, the destination for which my philosophies offer no comforts, she displayed the utmost strength as a result of her faith. She left me with a lasting image of a woman solid in her convictions and her beliefs. Faced with the most frightening of life’s adventures, she stepped forward with open arms and a smile on her face. Her good-bye to her family was only temporary in her eyes, so she raced to kiss Joey again and take him and his Mickey Mouse fishing pole to the nearest, fish-packed pond.

It might discourage my grandmother to know that I will continue to debate the values and dangers of faith; the process of my life has lead me down that path. But I hope that she would smile knowing that because of her each one of my epic pronouncements will end with the faintest of question marks.

Because of you, Grandma, I will never be certain.

In Memory of Phyllis Rockwell. I miss you.