27 February 2002

I had to stop at the drug store on my way home yesterday to pick up a prescription refill. There were a couple of people ahead of me in line at the pharmacy, so I waited patiently, amusing myself by eyeing the strange assortment of small items on display at the counter.

Our pharmacy usually has two people on duty during the week. Yesterday it was a younger woman and an older man. The woman wasn't behind the counter, though - she'd gone off to help a customer find something. As I'm waiting, she comes up to the side of the counter, excuses herself to the customer waiting, and asks the man, "Do we have any of those long cotton swabs you use for applying medication?"

"No," the man replied. "I think they stock them over at Berkley Pharmacy."

The woman thanked him and went back off to inform the person she was helping.

A few seconds later, she was back. "Do you know if it's okay to..." She turned around to look at her customer, almost as if she couldn't believe what she was about to say.

The customer - an elderly woman - stepped into the breach. She came a few steps out of the aisle she was standing in and addressed the male pharmacist. "What if I took a butter knife out of the dishwasher and dipped it in alcohol? Could I do that?"

I almost fell over. The male pharmacist wasn't reacting much better. He stared at her for a few seconds over the rims of his glasses. "Is there any reason," he asked calmly, "why you can't just use a Q-tip?"

The elderly woman seemed surprised. "Oh! I hadn't thought of that. All right, I'll use a Q-tip!"

So let me get this straight: This woman, needing a way to apply some topical medication and faced with a lack of sterile swabs, made the mental leap not to a different kind of cotton swab, but to a butter knife???

I suppose it might make sense if the medication was spackle for a prosthetic limb...

Matt and I were sitting around last night, merrily chatting online with assorted friends, when the phone rang. It was my grandmother. "I sent you some e-mail a couple of weeks ago," she said, "and you never responded. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

It made my hair stand on end. My grandmother hasn't called me directly, except for a few birthday calls, for years. She talks to my parents every Sunday, and they pass on any news and greetings. Of course, my parents have been in Germany for the past three weeks, so she hasn't gotten her weekly gazette, but still...

She's lonely, I thought. My grandfather is very ill, and ill-equipped as she is to take care of him, she's been doing precisely that.

But Grandmom doesn't believe in showing weakness. She used to not tell us when she or Grandad were sick or had to go in for surgery of any kind until it was over. Dad finally convinced her to tell them about these things before they were non-issues, but even then she always had a kind of backhanded casual approach that meant you didn't realize how serious things were until much later.

So she couldn't tell me she was lonely and scared. She had to tell me that she was worried about me because I didn't answer her e-mail from two weeks previous. So I chatted with her casually for a while, talking about work and my plans for the garden this summer. Finally, I took a deep breath and took the plunge. "How's Grandad doing?"

She paused. "Not very well at all. I have to feed him..." She paused again, then forced herself to sound a little more upbeat. She told me that he was actually up to making a little conversation today, and...

I tuned most of it out, I'm afraid. My grandmother doesn't admit weakness, not to her sons and certainly not to any of her grandchildren. She's always had to be the pillar of strength, the calm at the center of the storm. For her to break down that wall for even a few seconds...

My grandfather is dying.

I knew that before. He's been steadily failing for months - years, really, though the beginning of the decline was barely noticeable. He was barely able to travel to my brother's wedding eighteen months ago. When my parents went to visit them two months ago, he was barely able to travel from the health care facility to their apartment on the fifth floor of the same building.

I knew he was dying, that his life was measured in months - perhaps a year or two.

But for Grandmom to admit it... Those words, that catch in her voice... I knew it. But now I know it.

Depressing damn thing to leave you with, isn't it? Go back and read about the butter knife again.

--Liz