Gone Grandma Gone

Sometimes with deaths, there’s not a lake of tears to be shed. We can only hope that crossing the bar brings them comfort. In the case of Christine Palmer, my grandmother, the last two months of pain ended Saturday afternoon.

After a few decades of episodic health problems, this last bout was too much for that strong heart to overcome.

Two months ago, she kept complaining of an inability to eat, and the doctors barely saved her through two rounds of dialysis. She would never see home again, bouncing briefly to nursing home before more kidney problems brought her back to the hospital, and her organ functions steadily weakened.

“Ah, Billy” … that’s how she’d start. How she finished … well, others will tell me the tale. The energy just drained from her near the end. Mom said her eyes were vacant; she recognized some people, but those two tumultuous months shook something loose. It was almost as if she’d begun to drift from this world while still conscious.

This was the first time I’ve ever gone to Westport and she has not been part of the fabric. She held court in that house which loomed so large when I was a boy and diminished when I returned as an adult. Grandpa’s live gave out in 1986, and Uncle Frank had lived with her ever since. He’s been a caretaker in recent years.

Back in the day, I didn’t enjoy spending my birthday far away from home, without a person my own age nearby to celebrate. Still, it wasn’t all bad. Grandma rewarded our visit with a heap of spaghetti and clams – she saved the marinara for the end of our visits. I've rarely eaten spaghetti and clams since, because none could hold a candle to her seafood sauce.

After dinner and dessert on the side porch, twilight always collapsed into the television glow, the dame ancient television cabinet that still anchors the room. I watched Yankee games on the tiny porch television, sometimes falling asleep until the cold thrust me awake again before dawn. I think my love of solitude emerged in those summers, and that’s not something I ever wish to celebrate.

I could be criticized for not going earlier, for leaning on my two jobs as a reason not to go when death drew close. For my rationale, though, I go back to our last conversation in person, when we talked about rustic Italian cooking, simple salads with escarole and how to spruce up a meatloaf. Christine Palmer could cook like nobody’s business and talking about it gave her immense joy. I’ve tried a few of those recipes over the years, albeit in my hands, they were passable.

But her meals are done now.

In her hands, the recipes were her Bible, the kitchen her church, and a family her audience.