GRANDMA

My former boss sent me a text last Friday.  She rarely texts me other than news about Grandma.  I smile when I remembered her.  She was my former patient at my old facility.  Her name is Marion Rapalee.  She was born January 20 or 21st (not sure) 1919.  She is ninety-three years old but claims to be two hundred.  It doesn't matter how many times other patients tell her that she can't be two hundred it's impossible.  She strongly believes that she is and that is that.

I never knew anybody who didn't like Grandma.  She was sweet and kind and always looks at other people with empathy.  I remember one day we were in the gym exercising, and another patient rolled in in a wheelchair.  Grandma asked her what happened to her.  She told Grandma that she missed the chair when she sat, slammed her butt on the floor and broke a hip.  Grandma came close and gave her a hug and consoled her: Oh you poor thing.  Later, we found out why she was so compassionate about other patients.  Grandma Rapalee was a nurse her whole life.  She told us (over and over) again that she had been a nurse for sixty-three years (this too cannot be confirmed but we all know she had been one for a long time.) 

Grandma was also a wonderful singer.  She told us she sang in the choir and in church.  Everybody would amusingly hear her singing her heart out along corridors or in her room.  When you don't hear her sing, it means she's sick.  She belts out Somewhere Over the Rainbow again and again.  Or Someday my Prince Will Come.  She also likes Elvis' Blue Suede Shoes, Love Me Tender and Can't Help Falling in Love.  But because of her dementia, she makes up her own lyrics to the songs, admit that she's making them up and we'd all laugh about it.  Something like: Someday, my prince will come; Someday, I'll find my love; And the moment that he comes to me; I will hang him up the old apple tree...

I remember the first few times we met.  We were in the parallel bars and I asked her if she remembered who I was.  She told me no.  I told her: Well, Ms Rapalee. I'm the mayor of this town. Her eyes widened and looking all surprised she asked me: You're not.  I said: I am, really.  She replied: Wow! Then suddenly looking disinterested said: If you say so! Then, we both cracked up.
What I didn't realize is that she truly identified me as the mayor.  And she would talk to the nurses and other residents about meeting the mayor.  In the dining room, she would loudly introduce me to her table-mates as the mayor of the town much to my chagrin.  The name stuck though and some of them started calling me Mayor in jest.  I started calling her Grandma when she told me she will adopt me.  Apparently, she told a lot of people she will adopt them according to her family.  I've seen her daughter and granddaughter visit her several times a week.  Both of them were attractive older women who are about as sweet as Grandma.  One day while she was doing her therapy at the gym, they came to visit her.  Grandma insisted that they take her home immediately without delay.  They told her: But, Grandma, you're too old to go home. Nobody will stay at home with you all day. We work.  You're two hundred years old remember?  To which Grandma replied: Two hundred's not old.  It's not like I'm two-fifty!  I burst out laughing again right then and there.

Three weeks ago, the same former boss texted me to tell me that Grandma is back on caseload.  She had bowel obstruction and they picked her back up after hospital discharge.  Grandma remembered the Mayor and the therapist (my boss) who's seeing her as my step sister.  I told her to tell Grandma that I miss her a lot and she better get well soon.

Last Friday, she sent me a text again.  She told me Grandma was on a decline since last week and they finally sent her out to the hospital in the morning.  She told me, Grandma passed at the hospital.  It broke my heart.  Funny, how that same morning, I heard Somewhere Over the Rainbow being played on the piano by one of the residents.  I thought of Grandma then, just as I am thinking of her now.  It is amazing how God plans our lives.  There are some people who stay in your life for a long time and not leave a mark at all.  And yet there are some who pass for the briefest of moments and leave an indelible print in your being.

I will miss Grandma so very much.  And I thank God for giving me her for even just a short time.  I know who I want to be as a healer.  I know who I want to be when I grow old and gray.  She must be making all the angels laugh up there and making heaven an even happier place than it's ever been.  So I bid her adieu, until we meet again, somewhere over the rainbow.