A Final Goodbye

It's hard to say exactly when Omi left us.  When the picture above was taken, six years ago, she was already forgetting things. I would have lunch at her condo and she would tell me the same story three times. I've been trying to remember her stories as I write this.

She used to tell a version of how my parents met.  It went like this:  My dad wanted to play cards and my mom wanted to study, so my mom said "How about, first we study, then we play cards?" And they lived happily ever after.

Omi wanted to get married in a Catholic church, but when they went to see the priest my grandfather refused to sign something promising to raise their children Catholic.  According to my grandmother, Opa said "I don't even have any children yet and you want me to sell them to you!"

She told me how she met my grandfather in a dance class.  He was tall and handsome and, even though he wasn't paired with her at first, he only wanted to dance with her.

Just after World War II, when my grandmother was a teenager, she was attacked while bringing food to her father in prison. After that, she sent her younger brother in without her. She often told me, "War brings out the worst in people."

She moved back in time, talking more and more about the past.  Eventually, I was too new for her to remember who I was.  Sometimes, she thought I was my mother.  Then she forgot her too.

When I was a kid, Omi used to sing "You are my sunshine" to me.  Yesterday, when we went to visit her for the last time, my Mom printed out the lyrics and we sang it to her.  I only really knew the cheerful chorus; the verses were depressingly appropriate.  I didn't imagine she could have looked worse than the last time I saw her, but she did.  Older, thinner, greyer.  As we sang, she briefly opened her eyes, then scrunched up her face as though she was in pain.

We knew that she was going to die soon, and finally this evening she did.  But the Omi I knew and loved died a long time ago.  There was no exact time and date of death.  She slipped away gradually through a slow leak in her mind.

Super Omi Turned 80 Today

And she has no idea.

My grandmother has had alzeimer's since before my kids were born.  When my husband and I were dating, she was already starting to forget and repeat things.  She used to flirt with the security guards in her building.  She cooked for me all the time.  She made liver and bacon, homemade schnitzel and spätzle, rouladen. She always made you eat too much, never taking no for an answer.  She told everyone I was her favourite granddaughter, and bragged that I "sang like an angel", even though I only ever sang along to the radio.  She cheated at rummikube. We would laugh together, talk about music, and men, and the world. She would give me a quarter if I got a question right on jeopardy before the contestants did.  I was her smart cookie.

Omi has always loved kids, so my Mom thought that she might respond if I brought my kids in to see their great grandmother. It wasn't a party, nor even a celebration, only an attempt at giving Super Omi one last happy moment.  We stopped at Tim Horton's on the way and bought timbits for us and a yogurt for Omi.  Mom entered the combination to unlock the door and we saw her sitting in the hall.  She was sleeping in what my Mom calls her lazy-boy wheelchair. Her body looked thin and slumped, her skin pale. Her grey hair was combed straight.  Her bare feet were wrapped in white pillow-type things.  Her toenails were yellow.  She opened her eyes briefly, but didn't really look at any of us.   We wheeled her into the small courtyard and sang her happy birthday. 

We ate timbits and played catch with a football we brought with us.  At one moment, a woman walked across the courtyard, ripped a vine out of the garden and dragged it inside, leaving a trail of dirt on the floor.  We chatted with William about life and death and what Super Omi used to be like, then we left her and went to the waterfront and enjoyed the splashpad.  In the end we had a pretty nice day.