I'll Listen For You Forever

During my first two years of college, I came home every weekend to see my family. College campus was only an hour away, and it was important to me to come home and visit my family, mainly my grandmother.

When my grandfather passed away shortly after my 13th birthday, my grandmother was left ...I'm not sure there's a word to describe that kind of devastation. They had been a couple since they were 16. The best of friends, companions, life partners. That said, we did what family should do in times of great need. We invited her to live with us.

We sorted through a lifetime of belongings, sold the house I spent so many years growing up in, and did our best to make my grandmother comfortable in her new 11 x 11 living space in our house with attached half bath.

It was wonderful having one of the most important women in my life living with us...no longer did I have to 'visit' grandma...she was down the hall all.the.time. Albeit without my grandfather, but I tried not to think about that as much as I could help it.

During the first year of my high school years, my grandmother had a stroke. It was out of the blue and unexpected - like anyone goes around expecting something like that to happen?

It was then that the doctors discovered that my grandmother had an anneurism. An inoperable one at that.

The doctors were surprised that my grandmother had survived the birthing of two children.

But with that information, we knew there would be more strokes to come and a handful of medications and that this anneurism would take her life some day.

There indeed were more strokes during the duration of my high school years. Strokes that gave her double vision and made her walking unsteady.

She was a very dignified and proud lady. She never complained and worked hard at not inconveniencing others. And while never an inconvenience, she did need assistance.

All of this played a role as to why I traveled home each and every weekend during the start of my college years.

One weekend, my grandmother had slept later than usual. At the time she had the lower level of the house as an apartment for herself (We had moved over the years and now were in a much larger home.). As I sat in my room whose door met the top of the stairs that lead to my grandmother's quarters, I heard a faint tap...tap...tap... on her door at the bottom of the stairs.

My mind put two and two together...the late hour of the morning, the lack of my grandmother being up and busy around the house, and then this tap tap tapping...and I went down the stairs to check on her.

My grandmother had tried her best to drag herself to the door and had been tapping for a few hours to try to get our help as she had had a stroke and couldn't walk...and her speech was slurred somewhat.

I called for help and we were able to get her to the hospital where she went through several tests and began another bout of rehabilitation.

From that moment on, I never slept the same. I was always on edge waiting and listening in case my grandmother needed me. The thought of her having waited for hours for help tormented my mind and was solidified with the memory of the look on her face of both exhaustion from tapping so long and the thankfulness that I had finally come and found her.

Softly she sleeps... became me.

Time passed and I changed colleges. My husband, then boyfriend, well understood my grandmother's situation and also how much I valued her. We were now living too far to go home every weekend, but we did go home on a regular basis. I was unable to go home one weekend, due to school demands, and my husband knew I was bothered by the fact that my grandmother had not seen where I was currently living and how much I missed her. Being a nice boyfriend, he drove home three hours, picked up my grandmother, and drove three hours back to where we were living just so my grandmother could spend the weekend with us. Then three hours each way bringing her back home. I will be forever thankful for that.

The next time we went home, during the still of the night, I quickly awoke to the sound of my grandmother unsteady from her double vision and the coming on of a new stroke, yet again. She pulled 6 shelves and their contents down upon her while trying to use the washroom during the middle of the night.

Her biggest concern was that she had made a cluttery mess of all the things that had fallen off the shelves. That was not a concern of mine at all. I helped her up and freed her from all the fallen bars of soaps and bathroom toiletries. Got her back into bed, and then got myself back into my own bed.

The next day would be another day she slept in. Later than usual. And without hesitation I checked on her. There she laid in her bed, eyes open and blinking, with very slurred speech as she had had another serious stroke and was unable to move at all...

I called my mother for help and we dressed my grandmother, as any proper lady would want to be dressed, and called for the ambulance to pick her up. This time we were living much further from the hospital and it was wisest for us to have an ambulance pick her up.

This would be the last time that she was at the house. And as she was carried off by the paramedics, and we stood on the porch watching before we hopped into our own vehicle, we heard her say with a swing of her arm, "...and I had such a beautiful singing voice too..." The paramedics gave a look of, ~awww~... but my grandmother couldn't carry a tune for the life of her.. even well before she had any strokes... and as with most things in my family, tradegy is met with comedy.

But last night my husband tripped over the babygate. That noise, while not loud, especially with the noisy fan going in our bedroom, jolted my memory of the past. My grandmother has been passed for about a decade now. And yet, I can be pulled from a sleep into having tachycardia and be ready to act....I'm awake! Let me help...What do you need???... so many years later in a second's time.

It took me a long time to relax again enough where I could drift back off to sleep last night.

I guess I'll always listen for my grandmother...for the sounds of her needing me.