Old enough

We went to see Grandma D tonight. She is always distant, barely there. Km went with us tonight. In 4 months of recovery she might have been to see her Great Grandmother two or three times, but never on her own, never.

I remember when Grandma D's Mom was in the long term care. I was a kid and I only went to see her when my Mom took us, but I didn't think of her much. I was a kid.

My Great-grandmother L carried around a Cabbage Patch doll she called Elvis. One time we got ice-cream and rolled her outside for some fresh air. Someone that knew my Mom honked to get her attention and Great-grandma L gave them the bird. She was saucy. She once told a nurse to lose some weight.

I wish I could talk to her now, about our family, about her life, what she did, where she went. I'd like to know about her first marriage that I only stumbled upon while doing some genealogy. I'd like to know about her parents and grandparents, stories from her life, why she never let me win at checkers when I would stay in her old log cabin house. I'd like to ask her about my Great Grandpa Harry who died when my Grandma D was only 9.

I'd like to know why she chain smoked her whole life, lighting one cigarette off of the other, never flicking the ashes, but letting the cigarette become one long curved ash stick she never inhaled. A physcial in her late 80's or early 90's showed clear lungs. She never inhaled!

I wasn't interested in the ancient of days when I was young. I don't think Km is really interested now. It's like sloughing off old skin to the young. It just happens automatically, it's part of what happens. What wisdom it would be in our children to get to know their ancestry. Our elders possess a key to the past that is irrevocably lost as they move on. Like it or not, part of who they were is who we are.

I'd like to live long enough for my Great-grandchildren to really want to get to know me.