Love Is

It was a warm Monday morning, the third week of June. Blue jays were flitting about the front yard, picking at the short grass, looking for breakfast. Emma and Connor had left for school twenty minutes ago. Emma left chattering away about that morning’s class field trip to the Discovery Centre and Connor grumbling about not being able to take his new motorized scooter that he’d gotten for his birthday to school. He’d just turned nine on the weekend.
I’d just changed into a pair of capris and a tee shirt, and was tying my sneakers when I looked out my bedroom window and saw my eighty-eight year old grandmother shuffling down the street in her night clothes. She was going at quite a clip, considering her age.
I flew down the stairs and burst out the front door.
“Nana, come on back!” I broke into a jog and caught up with her just as she was turning on to Walnut Street.
“Where were you going Nan?” I asked, gently touching her shoulder, trying not to wince when I felt her fragile bones.
When I was a kid, we visited Nana and Poppy’s just about every weekend. I loved the anticipation of arriving at their small farm in Meadowbrook, especially in the summer during haying season when I got to drive the tractor hauling the hay wagon. They’d had cattle, chickens, pigs and even a goat named Billy.
Back then, my grandmother had seemed so tall, but she’d only been about 5’6”, the same height as I am now. I remember her long, thick waist length hair that she always wore in a huge braided bun. As a kid, I remember sitting on their bed watching her brush her hair one hundred strokes every night and then braided it into one braid before she went to bed. Now twenty years later, her hair is white and wispy, barely long enough to tuck up and she barely reached my shoulder.
Hazel eyes flecked with gold look at me in confusion and fear.
“I want to go home. Can you take me home?” She pleaded. “Charlie’s waiting for me.”
I didn’t have the heart to remind her that Poppy had died only four months ago. My grandmother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s two years ago. As the disease progressed, Poppy hired a care giver to come in three days a week to help take care of her. Unfortunately, Poppy developed health problems of his own. Nana moved in with us the day after his funeral.
I put my arm around her and we headed back home. After a few steps, Nana stopped and looked up at me through rheumy eyes.
“Poor Frank died in the war, you know.”
Nana was talking about Poppy’s brother who died in 1943.
“Yeah, I know. My dad was named after him.”
“Charlie loved little Frank like his own.”
What was she talking about?
“Nana, we’ve got bird feeders in the back yard. You like to feed the birds, don’t you?” On their farm, my grandmother had bird feeders all over the backyard.
I could see her mind slowly fighting its way through the cobwebs of confusion to clarity.
“Blue jays and robins.” She smiled, her hazel eyes twinkling again.
I sighed with relief. My grandmother was back. “That’s right. We’ve got lots of blue jays and robins. I picked up more birdseed last night. You can help me fill the bird feeders.”
She nodded and started walking with me. Half way down the block, she discovered she was wearing her nightgown and terry housecoat.
“I did it again, didn’t I? My land, what will the neighbors think? ” She was mortified.
“My brain doesn’t work so good any more, does it Amelia?”
Named after my paternal and maternal great-grandmothers, Amelia Frances Mosher is my given name, and everyone but Nana called me Frankie. She refused to call me Frankie, saying it was a man’s name. I liked the nickname myself, but I kind of liked it though when Nana called me Amelia. It sounded special coming from her lips.
I bit my lip. How could you explain to her that her brain was shrinking? How could you explain that to anyone?
“Don’t worry about it Nana,” I assured her with a bravado I didn’t feel. “All the kids wear their pj’s to school these days. You’re right in style.”
We walked a few more steps before she stopped again.
“My Charlie’s gone, isn’t he?” Her voice quivered. If she was going to start crying, I’d be joining her in about two seconds. I missed Poppy too.
My grandparents had been married for sixty-eight years. They married in 1943, a few months after Poppy’s brother Frank, was killed in action in WW2. My dad Frank, who is named after Great Uncle Frank, was born the following spring. Four more boys and one girl followed over the next twelve years. Five of them are still living, including my dad.
Poppy and Nana had adored each other. I remember the warm looks, the light caresses on the shoulder and the way they always held hands even if they were just sitting on the couch. I never once heard a cross word exchanged. If they ever argued, they did it behind closed doors.
My own parents should have taken lessons from them. Mom and Dad divorced when I was seven. Dad remarried barely five months later and lives in Edmonton with his second wife, Sylvia, and their three kids, Mark, Jimmy and Erin.
I’d never gotten a birthday gift or even a Christmas gift from him. It wasn’t until I was in my early teens I saw him again. He’d pay for my ticket and I’d fly out to visit him, but I never liked Sylvia and didn’t get along with his kids. We talk on the phone and email once in a while, but we’re not very close. I haven’t seen him in eight years, since Connor was a baby. I flew out to Edmonton with Tom that year so Dad could meet Tom and Connor, but Tom didn’t get along with my father, and since I couldn’t stand Sylvia, it was a very short, uncomfortable visit.
Recovering from a gall bladder operation, he couldn’t make it for Poppy’s funeral, but he did call and send a nice floral arrangement. Carol, my mother, never remarried and passed away seven years ago. She never got over the fact that Dad cheated on her with Sylvia, who’d been a secretary in the architectural firm where he’d worked at the time. I don’t think I have either.
I got married to Tom McPherson the same week I got my degree in journalism from King’s College. I was 22 and Tom was 24. Tom and I had dated for about a year, lived together for 6 months and decided to get married the same week I graduated. Tom and I moved to Stratford, Ontario for a few years where he taught history and I worked as a columnist for The Beacon Herald.
Five years into the marriage and two kids later, Tom suddenly decided he didn’t want to be married anymore. After we divorced, I went back to my maiden name and moved back here with Emma and Connor five years ago to work for The Chronicle Herald as an arts columnist. I started writing in my spare time and published my first novel last year to modest reviews and even more modest sales, and was working on my second. Since my grandmother moved in with us four months ago, I haven’t done much writing, managing only a couple of pages every few days, usually when everyone was in bed.
In her lucid moments, Nana makes pancakes for breakfast and does the daily crossword in twenty minutes flat. She adores Emma and Connor and it breaks my heart to see the hurt on their faces when their great-grandmother doesn’t recognize them. I’ve tried to explain to them about Nana’s disease, but being only seven and nine years old, they’re really too young to understand. I’m not sure I do myself.
“Yes Nana.” I replied, clearing the frog in my throat. “Poppy’s gone. But you’ve got me and Emma and Connor. We’ll always be here for you.”
I got her dressed and helped her fill the birdfeeders. I left her sitting in one of the Adirondack chairs while I went inside to fill the dishwasher and tidy up the kitchen. After that was done, I took another peek outside. Nana was still sitting in the lawn chair watching the birds flitter to and from the birdfeeders. It looked like she was talking to them. I ran upstairs for my laptop, and plugged it in at the kitchen table under the window that overlooked the backyard. With a little free time on my hands, I thought I might be able to finish a chapter that had been giving me grief for the past couple of weeks.
For nearly an hour, I cut and pasted and reworked some dialogue. I was reading the second draft, when I suddenly remembered I hadn’t checked on Nana for a while. I looked out the window. She appeared to be sleeping. The sun was getting pretty hot, so I went outside to see if she was ok. As I neared her chair, I noticed she was smiling, even in her sleep. She must be dreaming about Poppy.
“Nana, do you want to come inside for a bit? I can make you some iced tea.”
“Nana?” I knelt down and felt for a pulse but couldn’t find one. A sob lodged in my throat.
I gingerly sat down on the ground and rested my head on her knee and took her still warm hand in mine and kissed it gently as tears slowly slipped down my cheek. I couldn’t believe she was gone. There were so many things I needed to tell her that would be forever left unsaid.
Millie Pearl Mosher had been a woman who’d never aspired to be anything more than a wife and mother. Kind and thoughtful, with an open heart and a strong sense of family, she’d been the cornerstone of my life forever. I’ll miss you Nana. More than you’ll ever know.