Round and round we go
Current mood: artistic
Category: Writing and Poetry
Her nipples floated just above the churning white water, and appeared to my naked seven year old eye to look just like red raspberries. The purple and pink rubber seaponies bobbed in the currents, spinning them in an orbit around us and getting stuck in the filter of the jacuzzi. It scared me to reach my arm into the filter and pull them out. Would something bite my arm in there? Would I get sucked in? As the steam rolled up toward the dark tree tops, I thought about the fact that not long ago I nursed from those nipples. I silently wished I could remember the taste. I looked up at Mom, and the thought evaporated. My baby brother was asleep in the house, and it was just the three of us girls out on the deck. We played all sorts of games and it was an innocent time. A time where we could play naked in the hot tub and we didn't think it was weird. A time when the neighbors were so far away we could scream and laugh and no one could hear our trills and splashes. I looked down at my chest, seeing a sheer flat wall with two dime sized nipples. I wished for nothing else than to have breasts like my mom, with beautiful raspberries perched on top.
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I held her arm, and helped her slowly into the elevator. Cousin Laurie guided her dad inside and I pushed the greasy metal button with a knuckle. Internally, I shuddered at the thought of what might be growing on the buttons, and decided to have faith in my immune system and concentrate on the task at hand. I was a part of the elderly family member support team. Gram's greenish brown eyes looked up at me, shining. "Thank you for coming, Stephie", she whispered, clearing her throat. I squeezed her arm, smiled down at her and thought about her cough. She was trying hard not to think about herself today. She was struggling to be strong for her younger brother, who was having the procedure. Her cough worsened, and she pulled out a tiny bottle of codeine-laced syrup. I watched her take a small swig and tuck it back into her purse. "The Doc says I should have one or two teaspoons of this stuff when my cough gets bad," she said. "ONE OR TWO TEASPOONS!" She thinks no one is paying attention. "I'd pass out on the floor, little old me," she jokes, and we all look down at her tiny frame and smile. She's only 100 pounds now, and shrinking. The congestive heart failure is wearing on her, and I feel like it is precious to have her next to me.
The bell sounds and Uncle Kenny waits for us to exit before he does. Even in pain, he is still the gentleman. He seems optimistic as we head down the hall, but the air is heavy with dread and we all know what the tests are going to prove. I think of doing this alone, and how scared I would be in another sixty years. He goes into his appointment and we watch the hands on the clock travel around and around and around.....
Jerry Springer blares from a small television anchored in the corner of the waiting room. I look around and ask if anyone minds if I change it...the noise is hurting my soul. No one does. I think of better days. I think of times when cancer wasn't in the forecast.
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His pink nose quivers with emotion and tears roll down into his silver goatee. It is always this way when I leave Michigan and it always makes me sad. I wave a final salut as we head down the driveway and he stands in the snow, shoulders drawn together and steam trailing from his mouth. We've grown emotionally closer since I live geographically farther away. My Papa, standing in the snow, regretting being a workaholic.
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The phone rings twice, and I hear him pick up in surprise. "Well, hello there Rootie Kazootie!" I can see the corners of his mouth turning upwards. I am looking out on a shining silver sea, driving to work down the coast. "I just wanted to thank you, Papa, for being the best you could be." So cheesey, I know. But we both need to clear things up and say the things we haven't been able to say for so many years. "Thank you for being strict, caring, loyal, monogamous, hardworking, and generous!"
All of this drove me nuts, between the time I was a dime and a raspberry. Now I feel lucky to have had parents that cared enough to set rules. To give it their all, and to create a life so different than most children experience.
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"Get up, kiddo, it's the fourth of July!" I hear his voice through the screen. It's 7:30 a.m. and it's my favorite day of the year. My nine year old hairy legs swing over my trundle bed and my feet hit the floor. Purple nightgown off. Shorts and tshirt on. Barefeet padding around the corner on oriental rugs to the kitchen. "Hi Stephie," mom smiles. "Have some breakfast and I have a job for you." I already know what it is, and I wolf my cereal down as fast as possible. Outside there is a bundle of fifty small American flags on little wood sticks. I am in charge of decorating the yard and lining our driveway-a half mile long-with flags. Soon my feet are soaked with dew and shards of wet grass, and I can smell the charcoal burning in the spit. The day before I witnessed the horror of a kiddie pool filled with ice...and under the ice was a huge dead pig. My dad always went big. Big party, big house, big land, big pig. I screamed when he pulled back the tarp and made a growling noise...the pig laid quiet and clammy in it's icebath. He laughed, and I ran from the little house. Gross.
The fourth of July came with golf carts to zip around in, dunk tanks, egg tosses, big tents with blue and white stripes, a live band, three hundred adults, thirty kids jammed in a slightly yellowed jacuzzi, kegs, and of course the pig roasting all day. My dad's friend Al ate the ear off the pig one year when he got too drunk, and I was absolutely horrified. Such a display of machismo for a man with two gay sons.
Grams and Poppi always wore matching red, white, and blue outfits and he wore his "Uncle Sam" top hat. They were such a pair, joking and squeezing eachother.
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I looked at my phone, and pressed the voicemail button. Ka'eo's voice wavered, full of emotion. The message wasn't good, and my heart felt pained as his voice filled me in on his grandmother's condition. I wondered how our hearts could feel so much joy and with the flip of a switch could feel so much pain. I wished I could fly in and put my arms around him.
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"I'm ready," she said to me. The air in the hallway was stale. I looked out at the sunset from the hospital windows. "I want you to know I have had a happy life, and I have done all I need to do." Her white head bobbed emphatically, and I saw her veins standing out like blue spaghetti noodles through her paper thin skin. "Grams, if you are ready to go, then when you do I will be happy for you."
We hug, and I think to myself that I am really glad I came out to the hospital with them. She opens her purse and pulls out my Poppie's memorial program. It's dated Nov. 30, 2002. Five years she's gone on without him. We would never have expected it. A young twenty something picture of Poppie stares back at me, dimples etched in his smiling face. "How I miss him,"she murmured. Then coughed. Then the little bottle. I looked down at her, and realized we were both ready. Round and round, round and round. I am ready to begin with Ka'eo...again... as she is ready to end and be with her Tom ....again. Round and round.
It's a beautiful thing, this life and death.
