My parents didn’t tell me until nearly two weeks after it happened. My grandmother was in the hospital, put there by a virus that stubbornly went unchecked and affected her heart.
She was doing better now, they said, recovering in a nursing facility while she works to regain her strength to go home to the care of my 92-year-old grandfather.
They didn’t want to worry me: She’s fine, they said, adding that they were expecting to tell me when I called. I admit, it had been a couple of weeks. Life had gotten a little busy, turning my Sunday evening phone calls into texts scattered throughout the week.
I think about that statement, “They didn’t want to worry me.” It’s one that I’ve heard in the decade since I left my hometown. It’s a hard sentence to hear. Once I hear a “worrying” piece of information, I simultaneously want to rush to New Jersey and push it from my mind.
My grandparents played a huge role in my childhood. They frequently babysat me, and I delighted in going to their home for regular sleepovers. My grandfather taught me how to play poker when I was woken up by nightmares. My grandmother taught me how to sew. They both taught me the importance of being present.
And then you move away. Going away for college makes visits less frequent. Then moving away makes them even less so. There’s phone calls sure, but my grandparents aren’t big on using the phone. Five minutes is the standard length of the call and their answers to my questions about their health are always that they are fine.
I am, admittedly, not consistent when it comes to keeping in touch. I miss birthdays, even though they always remember mine. Cards I mean to mail fall between the seats in my car and are left there forgotten. The immediacy of my life here takes precedence over the life they are leading there.
This, I am told, is what they want. They helped launch me into this world to do what I am doing and my ability to create a new life makes them more comfortable in theirs.
But then, the guilt. They were so present in the beginning of my life. I should be just as committed as they continue to age.
My grandmother: Stubborn and proud. I know when I call her room she will assure me she is fine, this is a minor setback. My parents scoffed at the idea of a visit. The family would worry if I was on the road during the winter. My grandfather, so devoted to my grandmother, will say the same.
And so, the waiting. The thought that is never too far from the surface of my mind. I have been so grateful to have grandparents in good health. I do not find out about illnesses until long after they are gone. That level of sharing comes difficult in my family. Rather than list their ailments, my grandparents will talk to me about the weather, the amount of snow we’ve experienced so far this year.
Because of course, I worry. I worry about the trips I am unable to make to see them, the times when I do visit but schedules don’t work out. I worry about every missed opportunity to spend more time in their presence, to learn their stories.
My grandfather’s service in the Korean War is a nonstarter and not to be talked about. I want to know more, but I don’t want to pry. I regret not writing down every detail that’s ever been told to me.
Right now, trying to make new memories while holding onto the old. Why did I spend so much time journaling about social activities in high school when I could of been writing down their life stories? What happened to that family tree project they helped me work on for hours?
Then also, in the very back of my mind, is this preparation for when my parents reach that age? Will I go from being an absentee grandchild to an absentee daughter?
When I was a child I called my grandparents’ backyard “the forest,” despite it backing up to a fence on a busy Jersey highway.
It was what I thought the wilderness was and my grandfather’s gardens, a farm.
We would watch the birds that would gather at my grandmother’s feeders and keep an eye out for the neighborhood cats that my grandmother would scare off with a slingshot and rock. The blue jays, the robins, the woodpeckers.
She gave me a bird guidebook when I was younger. I’m not sure what happened to it. But lately I’ve been paying more attention to the birds I see and when I do call, I tell her about them.
Liz Sauchelli can be reached at esauchelli@vnews.com or 603-727-3221.
