Please Talk about Me When I'm Gone

Transformation

(1980)

We visited my grandmother the spring she died. I didn't know she was going to die, but everyone else did, especially her. I knew she was sick. I knew before I got there that she was very sick and I understood the urgency of my mother's recent visits. I realized that this family trip would usually have occurred at the end of summer, instead of while I was still in school.

I remember that she was unable to join the extended family-there were at least a dozen of us in the dining room-and the meal was, obviously, awkward. More, during every previous visit she had been the one cooking, talking, coordinating. She was, to me, not only the ideal grandmother (gregarious, ebullient, generous), she was an ideal human being. That, I realize now, is a grandmother's purpose-to be a real-life fairy-tale heroine for the children in her world. Toys, treats, and extreme indulgence were seldom in short supply every single time I was in her presence. But it wasn't just her ability to pamper; everyone adored her: my grandfather was, after almost four decades, still crazy about her. In fact, to this day I've never seen a husband who looked at his wife the way he looked at my grandmother, like a besotted schoolboy.

She had eased into the role of grandmother in part because she'd already mastered the role of wife and mother. Whether this observation betrays the subjective or naïve reminiscence of a spoiled grandson, the fact remains that no one in that family-especially my mother, as I subsequently and frequently saw firsthand-ever came close to recovering from her death.

The kids eventually went out to the living room to give her kisses. She was pleasant but past the point of putting on a brave face. She was suffering, and while I couldn't fathom what was really going on, I knew I'd never seen anyone appear the way she did, noticeably thinner, weaker and-for the first time in my memory-silent.

Looking back as an adult, I understand that she was doing what she could, for our sakes. She would have been in her bed, not on the couch, if we hadn't been visiting, covered in the same heavy blanket on a warm evening in early June. She wouldn't have done something I'd never seen her do, something that was beyond my limited comprehension: force a smile. It was devastating her to separate herself from the socializing she typically oversaw, but she was aware, however resignedly, that it was a result of the cancer that was killing her.

I hugged her, uncomfortable with this new and not-improved version of the woman I loved so unreservedly. Selfishly, I didn't like this change and the things it was already doing to everyone around her. "I hope you feel better," I said. Maybe she'll look better the next time I see her, I thought.

Less than a month later we were in Boston, again, for her funeral.