101 candles and so much more light

101. The number itself doesn't sound like a lot in a world of gigabytes and billions of dollars made and lost and earned again, 101 doesn't pack the same punch as it did when people stooped to pick up change when it fell from their pockets and before allowances were counted in dollar bills.

But when you pair the number with a person, a living and loving person, then 101 becomes so much.

Today, my grandmother is 101. She has surpassed the century mark by a whole year, and lived far beyond anyone's expectations.

She was once a feisty, opinionated, adventurous woman who made amazing noodles from scratch and rolled my hair carefully into spongey pink curlers. She laughed with me, sang to me, quilted for me, patted my arm in the night when I could not sleep. She saved JC Penney catalogs for me so I could cut out paper dolls to play with at her house and she fished out romance novels -- only the ones with sexy parts -- from brown paper grocery bags in the bottom of her clothes closet for me to read. She called me to read me my horoscope when it was good and to caution me to be careful when it was not. She was not perfect, but she was so much who she was.

She is not that person anymore. Perhaps in spirit, but not to the rest of the world. She sits, mostly contentedly, in a wheelchair or her bed in a nursing home downstate. She has had Alzheimer's the whole of Lil E's life, possibly much, much longer. She doesn't know who I am any longer. She doesn't know where she is. She doesn't know how old she is or even that all those candles and all that light belong to her.

We are not there to celebrate. It was too much to drive there for the day following the chaotic and full weekend, and sometimes it is just too hard. I made my peace with her and with God and with whatever twist of fate or cells or physiology took her memory and her presence and her personality from us all. I got to that place because I also was at peace with her life -- the long, long, full and joyful and not-very-easy life my grandmother led and then shared with me.

I am my grandmother's girl. My mother has always said that, and it is true. And today, while my mother serves cake to the nurses and other Alzheimer's patients in the week, while she helps my grandmother blow out the candle and sings to her and holds her soft, vulnerable hand, I will be holding what I have left of my time with her like a glass ball in my palm.

I will hold it, hoping to catch a reflection or even a glare, any little sign that at 101, she is still with us.

This is one of my favorite photos of my Grandma Alice and me, taken at her kitchen table, just before the Methodist Women's Tea at her church when I was in my twenties.

Comments

[Luna]

Hello! I came across your blog via Matt's. I just wanted to say is this blog made me appreciate my grandmother even more. She's 104 years old and her mind is still sharp. Thank you for sharing the lovely memories of your grandmother.
Luna from San Diego

[Jessica Ashley (Sassafrass)]

Luna, thanks so much for visiting (love love love Matt) and for your kind words. Here's to you and to your grandmother!

[Ayurveda]

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