Remembering better days

I've left the ICU. It's almost over now.

I knew time wasn't on our side when the critical care staffer asked Dad and his sister to step into the ICU family conference room. Then she shut the door ... and outside, we waited. It's funny how time seems to stand still and simultaneously slip away when one is waiting.

When the rest of the family was called into the conference room, Dad and Cathy were fighting back tears. Why had I never noticed how closely they resemble each other when they tighten their lips and try not to cry? They told us the doctors had resuscitated her once, but per her living will, they wouldn't try to resuscitate again.

So that was that. We were together in a hot cramped room, sniffling as Mom led us through prayer. My cousins left the room to find Kleenex; I left for the restroom and fought the urge to be sick. Then we all came back — where else could we go? — and we sat. Quietly. Lost in thought.

Finally, Dad piped up. "I remember when we were in Africa," he began, referring to the period in which his dad — my Papa — was stationed in Morocco as a Navy pilot. "The first year we were there, the only way we could get fresh vegetables was to go to the open-air market. We'd taken our 1949 Chevrolet station wagon 'Woody' over there, and there was Mom — five-foot-one and 110 pounds — with a 6-month-old baby, a 7-year-old boy, and an 11-year old girl. And she'd drive off the base and into the city to the market to buy vegetables.

"I don't know how she did it, in that market with all those Arabs, trying to get them to understand what she wanted to buy and take care of us," he continued. "There was this place that sold French bread, and if she wanted to get home with two loaves of bread, she'd have to buy five, because we'd eat three on the way home."

We started to giggle. And then we all laughed as we shared our memories of Grandmother ... How she responded to Papa's insistence that every meal be served with bread ("Jane, where's the bread? Did you forget the bread?"). How she kept a secret drawer of Pringles and Snickers bars.

And how a few years ago, eyesight failing, she'd called Cathy to complain about the horrible crackers from the grocery store. "The box says they're cheese flavored," Grandmother said. Cathy thought hard, then a lightbulb went off. "Mom, is there a picture of a dog on the package?"

It was nice watching the mood of the room lighten. She's slipping away, but we all carry pieces of her with us. For me, it's crunchy peanut butter, a millefiori paperweight, jewelry boxes, bags of marbles, Oscar de la Renta, a piano that hadn't been tuned in years, and bread without the ruffles. :-)

Last week, from the ICU, I asked you guys to Google for Death Cab for Cutie's "What Sarah Said." It's been very comforting recently. If you didn't get around to reading it, here are the lyrics.

Oh, and the picture? It's from my 1990 yearbook ... a photo of my grandparents and me at a 4th grade party. Grandmother's the second from the left. She hated that every one of us had our mouths full.

Of course, at 10 years old, I got a kick out of that. I still do. :-)