I visited my grandma yesterday. As many of you know through either stories on Instagram, knowing me in real life, or mentions in previous entries, she has dementia and Alzheimer’s. Growing up, we were not very close, but I have some fond memories. Since I was the youngest and my older siblings attended school before I did, she would haul me around in the backseat of a bandaid-colored long-ass four-door sedan, a classic of the 80s. I would sit there with no seatbelt on looking like the true tomboy ragamuffin I was while she would smoke cigarette after cigarette with the newspaper sprawled out on the passenger seat getting the address to the next garage sale we were going to either slowly drive past and deem not worthy, or stop and take a look around. I remember the first time I saw a photo of her from when she was in either her late twenties or early thirties. I was dumbfounded. She was beyond gorgeous, had hair to kill for, and a different personality that jumped out of the photo than the one that was behind the wheel with cigarette smoke surrounding her face and filling my lungs. 

I still think she is beautiful. The nursing staff still compliments her on her hair and how thick it is. She comments on my earrings, smile, and clothes whenever I visit. “She” is still there. Parts of her are permanent, others are lost forever. Her sense of humor is not one of them. We talk so much shit every time I visit. Any man who passes by down the hall, enters the room, pops up on the television or we roll past is immediately assigned as “my boyfriend” by her. I instantly say, “Nah, that’s all yours” and she says “Alright, I am passing him on too. Next!” I paint her nails for her and she stares at me in awe every time. We share a love for lemon desserts as well as a love for humor and men. Getting to know her while she is forgetting herself has been the biggest gift I never knew I needed. Life always seems to play out that way, at least for me, and I think for her as well. She does not even know I am her granddaughter but she lights up every time I walk in the door and says “You are the one who spoils me, and we like to get in trouble” and I say “You know me well” which is something I never felt she did when her mind was whole. The safety and joy I see shape her face when I walk into her room now is the same she sees in mine in return, even when she tells me her parents are in the other room and they are going to make her come live with me if we keep being naughty. Girl…pack yo bags!

Yesterday she asked me if I was going to get a nap in when I went home. I told her, “Not today, but you can take a good one for the both of us.” She gladly accepted the task but proceeded to ask me “Why the hell not?!” I do not like to cause too much stress talking about anything of importance because I think to be lost in your mind deserves to be wild in thought. Perhaps that is why I live and think the way I do, and why we talk about men so often…nothing of importance. Oh my gosh, calm down, Brad, it was a joke-ish. Speaking of jokes, I recently had an exchange where I made my notorious dumb jokes about kicking someone in the shin, chopping their hand off for taking so long to reply or flicking them in the nose. It did not land. This was a first for me. I usually land. I did not. I belly-flopped (which I honestly kind of loved). I then squirmed trying to figure out if they were attempting a humorous reply and the problem was their humor sucks and all the fun died for me, and then I outright refused to apologize because, duh. As it turns out, they are “non-violent” and I am somewhat “prematurely” violent. If you think I would ever chop your hand off, maybe you deserve to lose both. There I go again threatening to take off hands via text. Oh, what I would give to shin-kick a motherfucker. I can tell you what I wouldn’t give, my hand(s). 

So I violently threatened to chop off a hand (now two), visited my grandma, cat-called the male patients and nurses like any good granddaughter would do, and then sat in reverse in my parking spot for a solid one and a half minutes trying to reverse without even putting Bossy in reverse (honestly I can’t make her do anything). I am calling that a successful day. Do you know what finally made Bossy agree and say “aight” and get into gear? She overheard me sharing my excitement on a phone call over Apple CarPlay (which is her auditory system…mouth and ears) that my coveted creamer was buy one get one free and wanted to take me for a victory lap around Sprouts’ parking lot. It felt a lot like when I was in the backseat of my grandma’s car, feet barely hanging off the edge of the seat flopping around with bruised legs above them, engulfed in a dome of cigarette smoke wondering what treasure me and my grandma would find at our next stop. I wish my grandma was actually in the car with me that day to celebrate. We missed out on a lot of years together, but it turns out, we both had to lose ourselves to find each other. And now we can sit and pretend to smoke cigarettes together in the nursing home and make the “Fuckkkkkk yeahhhhh” face any old smoker would know comes with each inhale and exhale as we lock eyes and bust out laughing about the man who just walked by us that we both yelled “pass” at and the one who is sitting somewhere without his two hands because I fucking chopped em off and didn’t even write home to my momma about it.