November 28, 1990

"Granny"

 by Jeanne Winstead

Granny was getting up in years - almost 86 years to be exact. Her hair had turned silver, both her eyes had cataracts, and her hearing was almost gone.

Granny used to live on a 40 acre farm. She'd get out and mow the grass and feed the cats. But then it got too hard to shovel snow and drive to town in the winter to get supplies. She had two sisters who lived in a nearby town called Kingman, so she had a sale, rented the farm out, and moved to town. To be exact, she moved into a little one bedroom apartment in one of those housing developments for retired people.

She got along very well there. She enjoyed crocheting afghans and lace collars, working on her coin collection, clipping the obituaries in the local newspaper, and working the crossword puzzles. She would send the puzzles in and once she even won! When her family came to visit, she would show them the obituaries and her family would take her to eat at the Kingman restaurant where she always insisted on paying for their meals. She would see people she knew there and she would be happy.

As time went on, even the one bedroom apartment became difficult to take care of. So her daughter and granddaughters who lived close by would clean for her. At first, they cleaned on the sly. But even with her cataracts, Granny got suspicious when someone would disappear into the bathroom with a big, bulging pocketbook and not come out for 15 minutes. This was understandable, you must admit. So then her daughter and granddaughters started cleaning right out in the open. Granny didn't like this much and would harass them when they did it. But her daughter and granddaughters figured out how to handle it. They simply split up. One would clean the bedroom while the other would clean the kitchen. Poor Granny wouldn't know who to watch. She'd run from one to the other.

"You know my heart is bad," she would tell them.

But after the apartment was cleaned and Granny put on clean clothes, they'd all go out to eat at the Kingman restaurant where she would see people she knew, and she would be happy.

Then one summer day Granny went outside to get her mail as usual. But this time she couldn't remember which mailbox was hers. So she went through all of them. She also teetered when she walked. This caused her to fall down in the yard several times and caused her neighbors to worry, so they called her daughter who lived close by. Her daughter called the other daughter who lived far away and they both left for Kingman immediately.

Granny was admitted to Clinton hospital. Initially the doctors thought she had diabetes. They told her family she would need constant daily care. So after Granny was dismissed from the hospital, the family closed up her Kingman apartment and moved her to a facility in the same town as her daughter who lived close by. The facility was very stately looking. It had a long driveway lined with big trees and lots of squirrels and rabbits. A large high school was located right next door. In fact, Granny could look out her window and see the students practice foot ball in their red and black jerseys.

It was at this home that the doctors discovered that Granny had had a stroke instead of diabetes. Her right side was stiff when she walked. At first she didn't know where she was, or what meal she had just eaten, or what time of the day or what day of the week or even what season of the year it was. But then she got a clock that worked, and someone gave her a calendar. Next she had cataract surgery and got a hearing aid. Then her family started bringing her candy each time they visited. Granny had always loved candy. It would be all gone by the next time they came. She liked to sit and rock in her rocking chair in her room. Eventually she even started sitting in the lobby. At meal time, she would push another lady who was in a wheel chair to the dining room. She started playing bingo in the afternoons.

And, occasionally, she even won!

She had a room mate for a while, an eccentric old lady named Opal. Granny and Opal each lived in a world of their own. Granny was always surrounded by her schoolmates and her furniture. Even when she wasn't.

"I went to school with her," she'd smile and point knowingly at an old lady sitting next to her.

"Claude and I donated that table a long time ago." She'd motion toward a table in the dining hall.

Opal always wore gloves and a hat and wiped everything down with a kleenex.

The only point of intersection was the heating unit. And it was on Granny's side of the room. They fought for control of it.

All I can figure is that Granny must have won that fight, because one day while we were visiting, Opal marched into the room, glared at Granny and announced, "I called the sheriff. You're going to jail for what you did!"

Soon after that Granny had a different room.

"Just as long as they don't charge me for the whole room," Granny said. "I only use my half of it."

The end came for Granny when the stately facility she was staying at went bankrupt. One by one its elderly residents packed up and moved away, until Granny was the only one left. The newspapers quoted her on the day she moved out.

"I'm 87 years old," she told them proudly. "87 years old."

And she was happy.