RoRo and Easter
My grandmother was released from the nursing home last Friday.
We are all greatly relieved. Family members of my parents’ generation have been staying with Ro and Nana around the clock. (I think they were staying in the house with Nana during the nights while RoRo was in the hospital and then the nursing home recuperating. Nana’s got Alzheimer’s and they were afraid she might hurt herself or do something weird while RoRo was gone.)
I’ve been on the Cheer-Up Committee. (Kinda hard to commit to caring for RoRo when I have two small children that need constant attention.) I bring Asher and sometimes Lucas, too, to visit RoRo. I call it Baby Therapy. She holds Asher and enjoys it very much. Asher’s less keen on the scenario, but he tolerates it pretty well. RoRo was the envy of the nursing home because she had a baby to snuggle sometimes.
She has these baby-holding habits that she’s been practicing for well, probably 60+ years. She licks her thumb and forefinger and then tries to make the baby’s hair curl by wetting it and curling it around her finger. She also says “No, no, no, no, no” everytime the baby she’s holding starts to fuss, as if she’s taking it personally. When it’s time for Asher to nurse and I need to take him from her, she complains bitterly. She’d prefer it, I think, if I would hand her a bottle so she could feed him. If the baby cries when someone else is holding him, she asks “Are you pinching him?” Never fails. I guess when you’re 87 years old, your habits are pretty damned ingrained. But she loves them–every one of them.
Anyway, RoRo is doing much better now. As far as I can tell, she’s done saying wacky delusional things. I should ask my aunt Julie about that; she’s been on duty more than anyone since RoRo fell. She is back in her old chair in front of the TV. She’s eating more now than she did in the nursing home, where she complained about every single morsel they set before her. Her hip is healing well; the physical therapy has been very good for her. It may be that she’s stronger and more fit now post-surgery than she was before the broken hip. The family has removed all the area rugs in the house, at the nurses’ direction, because Ro tends to drag her foot and could trip again. Falling seems to be her specialty, but this last time was the worst of all the spills she’s taken over the years.
Easter was held at Ro and Nana’s house as usual. They were both radiant in pink pants suits (which was unusual for Nana because she has shunned that color her whole life). The family just proceeded to create the same exact Easter celebration that RoRo would have orchestrated, right down to the 12 dozen colored eggs for three children under 10 to find. Every single one of us got a bag full of candy, as usual.
The kids all got presents. Lucas enjoyed his present from RoRo this year much more than any stuffed bunny of years past: Tami, shoping on Ro’s behalf, bought him a dinosaur discovery kit that came with a block of chalk, chisel, hammer, and brush. Embedded in the block were six plastic dinosaurs to unearth. There’s also a dino activity book that he uses diligently when doing his “science homework.” Lucas also got several outfits.
Asher got a stuffed duck and some baby blue clothes. He didn’t seem too interested in any of the festivities, but he sure let me know when he’d reached his limit and needed help getting to sleep.
