Nana

Accidents with bodily fluids were dissolving the dignity - the elegance she was born to and tried to pass on to my mother and me. I took her to the doctor because I wanted him to see the urgency of her condition. Her balance is off; her speech is halted in some labyrinth between her brain and her tongue. She tried to sauté her sneakers; for God’s sake, help me protect her.

Please, put her in the hospital so she doesn’t fall - or worse - when I’m at work. Give me some breathing room to find her a decent nursing home. I can’t piece together enough reliable help to watch her, dress her, toilet her, bathe her, feed her and enjoy what’s left of her.

I don’t know what he saw, but he asked her if she thought she needed a nursing home. Idiot! It took her a full minute to process the question and push out a “No!” Then, a pleading but trusting look at me.

“Nana, I just need to keep you safe. I don’t think I can do that in the house much longer.” Then Dr. Idiot mumbled something about the difficult decisions ahead of me. He said she looked good and that he looked forward to seeing us again.

And she smiled. I don’t know how or why, but she’s still gorgeous. He left us alone in his cramped examining room and it all hit me at once. I can’t take care of all of it, can’t put out all the fires, and there are so many fires, and all I‘ve got is tears.

I helped her out of the chair and set her up with the walker. As I rummaged for my keys, the tears and accompanying snot gave way, and I couldn’t count on advanced dementia to hide my full-on convulsive sobbing from one of the first people to ever dry my tears.

Ask anyone: I’m ugly when I cry. As the song goes, I still break just like a little girl – and at that time - last summer - with about the same frequency. But it had to stop, and not wanting her to see any more of it, I tried to hide it with a hug. But she stood there in my arms, my tiny, 91 year-old Nana, and she rocked me.