A Matter of Life and Death

Grandparents are supposed to be warm and fuzzy. Usually I am. I let Marshall, who relishes skin-to-skin contact, rub my skin whenever he is tired. I allow Jim just a few jumps on my family room furniture whenever he is excited. (Perhaps I can justify replacing my twenty-year-old, now-that-the-kids-are-grown couch with a new now-the-grandchildren-are-grown model. ) And I hand Adella the Roku remote a bit too often. But when it comes to discipline. Well, . . . let’s just say, I frequently deflect to my children, their parents. They can play bad cop to my good cop.

But sometimes, sainted as we grandparents are, we get frustrated. And when we are frustrated, we say words we regret. Today was such a day. The minute I said them, I knew I should not have. And despite wishing all day that I had not said them, I could not take my words back.

The morning began with a text from Pop Pop. He had forgotten his insulin pump again. Now it might seem unusual for someone whose life depends upon such a device to simply forget to attach it after his morning shower. But Pop Pop, who has had the weight of the world on his shoulders lately, did not slept well last night and he just simply forgot to reattach it. So he was dependent upon me, his angel of mercy, to deliver his insulin pump to him. 

When I got Pop Pop’s text, the kids were still in their pajamas. And very rambunctious. I knew it would be a herculean effort to get the kids dressed and out the door this morning. I warned Scott that my pump run might take a little longer than usual.

“Adella and Marshall,” I announced to the children, “Pop Pop forgot his pump. We’ve got to get dressed and take it to him.”

“But I don’t want to. It takes too long,” Adella whined. She clearly remembered the long ride the last time we took Pop Pop his pump. “Why do we have to take it to him?”

“Because he cannot leave work,” I replied. “And this pump is very important to him. We must get dressed.”

“I’m not going with you,” she protested.

I let her be for a few moments. I knew I might need to circle around the issue a few times to achieve my goal of getting all three of us dressed and out the door. So I went to my bedroom and threw on some clothes, some regular clothes. The last time I took Scott his pump, I looked like a hobo. Today, I was determined to look a little more presentable. Besides I figured if I got the kids in the car, we might as well also stop at library for story time afterwards.

Dressed, I came back to the family room. I reminded Adella again. She responded by stripping and running to the bathroom. 

After her potty break, she danced back to the family room, a few pirouettes followed by several slides down the smooth hardwood floors as she gleefully sang, “I’m naked. I’m naked.” On any other day, I might have admired the freedom of her nakedness and the joy of her song. But today I needed her dressed.

“I need you dressed,” I repeated, amping up the seriousness of my voice.

She promptly pulled on three different pairs of panties and declared, “Look at me. I’m dressed.”

At least that’s progress, I thought, and went to work on Marshall. I changed his poopy diaper and dressed him. 

Adella was down to one pair of panties by the time I finished with Marshall. But then she began dancing a taunting dance, one intended to egg me into chasing and grabbing her. I did not give chase. At five, she is too old to chase. And at my age, I am far too old to chase her.

“Pop Pop really needs our help,” I repeated. 

Then I lowered my voice register and increased my volume to serious Granma mode, a tone I rarely use, a stage akin to DEFCON 3, so rarely used that it usually shocks my grandchildren scurrying into action. “Please get dressed, NOW.” 

“I don't want to,” Adella pouted, deaf to my histrionics.

“But if we don’t take the pump to Pop Pop right now, he will get sick. He needs his insulin,” I said.

“But why?” she replied loudly and defiantly. “Why? Why do we have to go to his work? Why can’t he come home? WHY?”

Enough was enough. I snapped. 

“Why?” I said. “Because Pop Pop will die without his insulin.”

I regretted saying the D-word immediately. But I knew what had been said could not be unsaid and that given Adella’s memory, I might be writing checks for therapy in twenty years. It was unfair of me to place the burdens of life and death on a five-year-old. Furthermore, it was a conversation reserved for parents, not grandparents.

I reflected on my conversations with my own children about death. Because of cancer and heart disease, my parents had begun walking a tightrope between life and death five years before my children were even born. I had talked openly and frankly about death with them from the time they were young. Of course, sometimes my conversations were misconstrued by their young minds, as when Nathan, about the same age as Adella now is, began telling anyone who cared to ask that his grandfather ate too much ice cream and then died. But my children at some level understood death as a part of life.

And now I had circumvented an opportunity for my daughter to have a discussion with her own daughter. True, they had discussed death with Adella two months ago when Great-Grandpop Wake had passed away, but his death had seemed more remote. He was much older and lived many miles away. Her greatest concern was that Great Grandpop’s memorial service conflicted with her best friend’s Bruce’s birthday party, a dance party, no less. Pop Pop, on the other hand, was a part of Adella’s daily life. I had unwisely upgraded an urgent situation into a matter of life and death. Oh, how I wished that I had framed the urgency of the situation in terms of life, not death, like my daughter who, when her impish son steals her pump while she showers, reminds him that she needs her insulin pump to live.

Nonetheless, my regrettable words did inspire immediate action. Soon Adella was dressed, and we were all strapped in my car. 

“Hurry up, Granma,” Adella, she who had dawdled, urged as I started the car. “You need to drive fast. We don’t want Pop Pop to die.”

Granma did not speed, at least no more than usual, but we made it to the high school in record time. Once I was parked, I texted Pop Pop, then called. Three times. But he was busy doing what teachers do--teaching. 

“Scott, Scott, Adella’s here,” Adella yelled from the backseat each time she heard his voice mail greeting over the bluetooth car speaker.

And indeed she was. Ready to save the day by delivering his pump. I was less fervent, just hoping Scott would see my texts or listen to my messages, for I did not want to unbuckle the carseats, zip coats, and shuffle my two little charges into the high school.

We sat in the car for a few minutes, waiting. Marshall expectantly squirmed in his seat. 

"Well," Adella said after a while and then paused. It was clear she had been thinking and was ready to make a pronouncement. 

“I’ll miss Pop Pop if he dies,” she said as matter-of-factly as if she were commenting on the state of the weather or what she had eaten for lunch at school.

And then I knew. I would not need to write any checks for therapy after all. Adella was not nearly as traumatized as I by my warnings of Pop Pop's death. 

Eventually, we got out of the car, rushed through the winter cold to the school, and were buzzed into the building. Soon four little feet were on tiptoes and four little hands grasped at the edge of the security guard’s tall desk. Only two little eyes peered over the desk at the very congenial security guard, for despite his best efforts, Marshall could not quite see over the top. He grunted as he tried to pull himself up.

“We have Scott’s insulin pump,” Adella announced proudly as she tried to reach over the desk to pass the pump to the guard.

“Why don’t you give it to him yourself?” the guard suggested, and then paged Scott. 

In a few minutes, Pop Pop was walking down the center of a very long, empty school hall. 

“Look, there’s Pop Pop,” I said and the children ran off down the hall to him, Adella holding the pump aloft.

Pop Pop saw them and grinned widely. Then as they neared him, he stopped and squatted down. Adella jumped into his arms. Marshall, just happy to be out of the car and running down the hall like a typical two-year-old, missed his mark and ran right past Pop Pop. Agile beyond his years, Pop Pop leaned back and scooped him up. 

Then the bell rang. And as students erupted from the classrooms and spewed into the halls, Pop Pop embraced Adella and Marshall, shielding them from the noisy swirl of students and backpacks and adolescent angst. He looked at me, smiling, basking in this brief moment of everyday ordinariness. Fully alive. At least for today.