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Grandma's
Baby
 One of
the most profound prayers I have ever prayed is “Help!”
Sometimes it’s as simple as “Help, I cannot find my left
shoe.” Or “Help, I cannot find my passport and I’m
second in line.” But lately the prayer has been increasingly
desperate, uttered through clenched teeth, because I feel like
a pair of wet swim shorts about to be squeezed through one of
those ancient wringer washing machines.
On my
forty-fourth birthday—the same day Mick Jagger turned
sixty-three—I dragged myself out of bed to take my youngest
son golfing. I could think of no better reason to get up and
face old age.
As we strolled
the course together, whacking a little white ball and
sometimes kicking it, Jeff informed me that he was thinking of
buying a Ford Mustang and dating a pretty girl. I threw him a
Charles Manson look and said I was considering pushing him in
the creek. The child lives life like he golfs: carefully
planning his attack, then lunging at things and whapping them.
After tallying
our scores, we drove to visit my mother who needs me, among
other things, to finish sentences for her. They don’t
prepare you for this in college. You learn of ancient
languages and philosophy, but there’s no course on what to
do when your mother insists that your son’s iPod is her
hearing aid.
As we visit,
Mom hands me her “baby”—a blanket scrunched, twisted,
and spilled upon by numerous patrons of the long-term care
facility where she now resides. Few know that she was once the
author of many books, adored by her children and a dozen women
who still call her Mom and mentor. The years have been kind to
her relatively unwrinkled face, but her memories are distant
now, her mind perpetually fuzzy, frantic at times, like she
knows things I don’t and wonders if she should burden me
with them.
She leans
forward, eager to ask me something. “Is your wife—you
know—pregnant?”
Jeff
snorts.
“No, Mom,
not that I know of.”
“Did the
divorce go through?” It is one of her longer sentences.
I shake my
head and smile. I, her lastborn son, who has been married to
his high school sweetheart since the advent of disco.
While nursing
Mom’s bundle of blankets, I try to lighten the air with
chatter. I tell her of our golf game, of my birthday, which we
will celebrate at lunch tomorrow, just the two of us. She is
focused on my bald spot now and is holding hands with Jeff.
The boy loves
his grandma; loved to sit on her lap as she read to him when
he was toddling. But he never saw the story ending this way.
How quickly his face changes from grin to grimace when we
visit her. He leans forward and drapes his other arm across
her shoulder.
I am holding
the baby with one hand and a steaming cup of herbal tea with
the other when my cell phone begins playing the Hallelujah
Chorus. Setting the teacup on a table, I flip the phone
open to find things further complicated. Though the connection
is bad, I can hear my wife’s desperate voice:
“Phil,”
she sobs, “it’s Steve. He—”
And the phone
goes dead.
Handing the
baby to Jeff, I sprint for the nearest landline, praying my
favorite prayer. My mind races to keep up with my pulse.
Steve, the
eldest of our three teens, is on a trip overseas, smack-dab in
the middle of one of the world’s hot spots. My nightmares of
late have been plagued by images of his demise. I dare not
think the worst, but now it appears to be upon us. Down the
hallway around the corner, I grab the phone, but hesitate
before dialing.
I suppose this
day is a microcosm of our lives the past few years. Dreaming.
Dreading. Laughing. Answering the phone a little less eagerly.
We are parenting two generations now, wedged between the
demands of elderly dependents and energetic teens—neither of
whom think you know very much. I attend to my duties
begrudgingly at times. I am husband, father, and son. But my résumé
also includes psychiatrist, doctor, advisor and Power of
Attorney—which, I assure you, does not come with a
lawyer’s salary. I feel like a rookie juggler who has been
put in charge of ticket sales, concessions, and training the
animals too.
Years ago a
scholarship sales representative sat us down to threaten us
with how much it would cost our kids to go to college. He
didn’t mention the price of caring for our parents.
Most weekends
find me traveling near and far helping audiences laugh,
telling them where the joy comes from. Yet in those moments of
stark honesty I must admit that my stiff upper lip quivers
sometimes, that lurking just beneath the smile is a growing
sadness. It’s the kind of sadness you feel watching the last
sunset of fall, knowing that winter is about to stagger in on
you.
I dial the
number, expecting the worst. The phone rings and Ramona picks
it up. She is more composed now. “I’m sorry,” she says.
“It’s just that…Steve called. He has malaria. Sorry, I
sort of lost it.”
I am elated.
My son has malaria! If I were any good at dancing, I’d break
into salsa right now.
Jeff is
talking with Grandma when I return, curling her hands in both
of his. Already he has learned one of the secrets to a rich
life: In dark times, give off light.
“Everything’s
fine,” I tell him. “Steve just has malaria.”
He squints at
me like I’ve lost my mind. And since Grandma has lost her
hearing, he quietly shares what she’s been saying to him.
“So you’ve
been stealing her money, eh?”
I laugh. “What money?”
The boy is
strong but tender, with eager eyes and a hunger for life. But
sometimes I wonder if he’s seeing too much of it, if what
might be coming scares him. Sometimes I want to shield my
children from life. Yet what do you do? Take them only to
movies with happy endings? Never buy them a puppy? At least if
your heart gets broken, you’ll know you have one.
Out in the
car, I ponder this journey we’ve been on the last few
glorious and frantic years. I may not know much, but I do know
this: We will walk this road together. I have no idea where it
will take us, but just as my parents took time for me, I will
take time for them. As surely as childhood is about family,
old age is family time too.
I think of a
friend’s advice: Right foot, left foot, breathe. “Help,” I mutter. “I’m
squeezed between my parents and my kids.”
And God speaks
with words from my youngest son, this gift of God, who at
times I feel like throttling. “So Mom is a basket case,
Grandma’s in the loony bin, and Steve has malaria. Other
than that, things aren’t bad. Happy birthday, Dad.”
When he talks
like this, I want to lock him in a bear hug.
“It could be
worse,” I say. “My youngest son could start dating.”
“Maybe,”
he laughs, cupping his hand out the window against the
oncoming wind.
His
laugh has me thinking I can muster the courage to face a
birthday cake with forty-four lit candles. Maybe climb out of
bed again tomorrow and move my feet, one at a time.
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