The abyss

My mother and my grandmother (my father's mother) hate each other. There has been a schism between them since I can remember. As a child, my grandmother was known to me only by rumors and poorly placed bad names, like: old broad, battle-ax, grump and dump (gram and gramp), and in moments when I wasn't supposed to hear The Bitch.

When talking about this schism, my grandmother refers to a period of time when my mother demanded that she buy my family a house. One house wasn't enough for my mother, she wanted another and if she did not get it, my grandparents were never going to see their grandchildren again. I was 16 when my sister began demanding to see her grandparents. Until that point, we had been hidden away in Washington State.

My mothers version of the story says that my great grandparents had willed money to my parents who used it to buy a home. The home was foreclosed, so my parents went to my grandparents for help. My grandmother refused, but my mother insisted that she had bought both her other children homes and was not treating my father fairly.  

To be fair, my grandmother isn't fair to my father. There is no love lost in that relationship. But moms reactive way of dealing with things often creates hard feelings that are not easily overcome. If dad had chosen someone else to be so very loyal to, things between he and his mother may have been different. 

Thus a schism, a rift, an abyss. 

In 2003, I moved to southern California, within 50 miles from my gram and gramp. At least once a month since then, my husband and I have been visiting them on the weekends, usually for Sunday brunch. Most Sundays, I talk to my mother on the phone and generally she asks if I have been down to see my grandmother that day. There is a bit of a jealous edge to her voice when she asks, but I try to dispel it as best I can. Both my gram and my mom vie for my affection. I do my best to play Switzerland, but mom often hurls mud, claiming my heart to be disloyal.

Time and time again, I hear of people living to the next major milestone in their lives and then kick-off soon afterward. My gramp passed away five days after my grandparent's 65th wedding anniversary. Gram turns 92 on Saturday. She has been planning a party for months, but has also been getting more and more feeble. Though, in a conversation today, she sounded perky, alert, and hoped that my sisters and I make it to her party. But just last week I was concerned that she may not make it, herself 

Meanwhile, in a hospital bed in Washington State, my mother is in the intensive care unit. She is heavily sedated and on life-support. Both sisters in portland, Oregon, are wondering if they should get on the plane to come here or fly to Washington.  

But we have done this before. An year and a half ago, under similar circumstances, my whole family gathered around my mothers deathbed as we pulled the plug on her life support. As my sister bent in to hear my mothers final request, mom demanded that someone bring her popsicles. At Popsicle number 13, the nursing staff pulled the plug on the inflow of popsicles, took moms blood sugar and Told her no more Popsicles for the day. Mom was out of ICU within 24 hours.

My sisters and I are all reluctant to go back to the hospital. It was really traumatic the first time, and to have to live through that again seems unbearable. I know it sounds terribly selfish, but I don't want to go there and relive that.  My parents were just in portland for moms birthday, so their memories are fresh of an upright and living mom. A year ago in the ICU, mom looked nearly dead. It is difficult to see someone you love like that. And to smell her like that. I didn't know it at the time, but I was about a month pregnant when all of that went down, and my sense of smell was magnified.

Mom cried when I told her, but I didn't know until I was two months along. "A new life!" she said. She was so excited. I told her because I was so afraid that she would die without knowing. My due date was her birthdate. I miscarried after 11 weeks and thought I was going to die, as well. We had been trying to have a baby for ten years, at that point.

After I miscarried, I couldn't talk to my mom for months. I blamed her, her filthy house which I had spent days and days cleaning up so that they could have somewhere safe and clean to move back into. My parents are hoarders to the highest degree. I cleaned a cat box that had been dumped on their carpet a decade previously, as well as mouse poop everywhere. After waiting for so long for something to happen and being so disappointed to loose it, I blamed every possible cause. 

Mom and dad never did move back into their house. They got into an apartment paid for by the city. They still live there.Well, as of this minute, they are both living.

Moms heart is failing to pump the liquid out of her lungs. Heart failure. Moms lungs are failing to absorb oxygen. Lung failure. Moms kidneys are not filtering her blood. Kidney failure. Her doctor says that he has some hope for her, and that my family should come and enjoy my grams birthday party. And I think that's what we will do. Enjoy it knowing that there is a bitter pill waiting.