For posterity, we are in the middle of a novel coronavirus pandemic and my grandmother is dying of pneumonia in a nursing home. Her condition is apparently unrelated to COVID-19, which is surprising, especially given that we received a call last week to let us know that there were cases of the virus in the building.
I didn’t visit my grandmother enough before the pandemic and I haven’t visited her at all since the lockdowns started about six weeks ago. To say that I feel guilty doesn’t even begin to cover it. I keep thinking back to ten years ago when my family’s Black Lab, Nera, was old and suffering, and I was relieved that my mother was the one caring for her. Important to note is that this is a dog my 14-year old self begged for, with all the requisite pledges and promises to single-handedly walk, feed, love, and otherwise care for this creature. I did this for all of two months before tiring of my duties and ceding responsibility, one walk at a time, to my mother. I adored Nera, though, and when she grew white and hobbled, too pain-riddled to stand up for things that used to send her into manic sprees, it was too sad for me to watch. I didn’t accompany her to the vet’s office when she was being put down. I let my mother handle the pain for all of us and I hoped that the unconditionally loving companion who was with me through my teenage years, my marriage, and the birth of my first child, would forgive me.
I feel that I abandoned my grandmother similarly over the past couple of years. My friends and family assure me that with three young kids, a demanding full-time job, and little help at home, my life has been a collection of plates spinning precariously on my fingertips. They remind me of my recent, mysterious, probably stress-induced, autoimmune diagnosis. They urge me to cut myself some slack. I hear them and I want to agree, but the guilt is always there because, deep inside, I don’t actually believe that there is any excuse.
Knowing this would likely be the last time I’d see my Babushka, I drove to her Covid-19-infected nursing home this morning, paid for parking with surgical gloves, and clumsily donned the full-body protective armour given to me by the staff at the entrance. It was hard to tie a mask on behind my head with gloves on. I couldn’t tell if I was making knots, and if I was, if they were tight enough. It didn’t help that my hands were trembling a little.
My temperature was 36 degrees, according to the talking scan thermometer the nurse hovered near my forehead as I filled out the forms that would help track me down in the event of a proper outbreak there over the next 2 weeks. I couldn’t remember what things I touched with those gloves since coming in and I was pretty sure that my gloves touched the inside of my mask before I put it on. Any further actions to try and fix the situation would only make it worse, so I took solace in the fact that I was wearing two masks; the one I put on in the car, and the one I was given before being allowed into the elevator.
I pushed the enormous, square, Braille-embossed “4” in the elevator with my elbow, while wondering whether it was better to breathe with my mouth or my nose. I decided on my nose, since the cilia (those tiny little hairs in there) might help to ensnare virus particles if any got past the masks. Now was it better to breathe quickly and shallowly? Or deeply and slowly? It didn’t matter because I was starting to cry, and controlling my breathing was becoming too hard to focus on.
From a room somewhere in my grandmother’s hallway came the sound of a woman’s continuous, high-pitched wail. It grew only slightly quieter as I ventured past, and remained as a kind of haunting soundtrack for the rest of my visit. My uncle Peter was sitting beside my Babushka’s bed when I walked into her room. She was asleep or unconscious or in a coma, or conscious but unable to communicate (as was usually the case over the past year or so). I didn’t know. She looked tiny and peaceful and also sounded like she was working hard to breathe, despite the mask and machine that were helping her do so.
I thought it would take longer for the grief to settle into my throat, but it was swift. Hundreds of thoughts and memories flooded my mind to remind me how deeply she adored me, how selflessly she took care of me, how her eyes would brighten every time I walked into the room. I also couldn’t stop replaying an earlier emergency hospital stay she had when she was several years younger. Her heart suddenly went into atrial fibrillation and she was told it would have to be electrically shocked to bring it back to its normal pace. She was certain she wasn’t even going to make it until the procedure. She sobbed and said she was scared, like a small child. I was terrified, but I confidently told her it wasn’t her time yet, and joked that we would have many more trips to the hospital together over the coming years. It was surreal to have the tables turned, offering my babushka, my heroic caregiver, the kind of comfort I always took for granted from her. It was her fear that I couldn’t stop replaying now. I thought about how terrified she might be at this moment, facing her actual end, unable to speak. I prayed that she was in a place of peace and dug deep to understand what my role could be in this liminal moment.
My uncle took a phone call in the hallway and I took the opportunity to desperately tell my Babushka that I love her and i love her and I love her. I didn’t know what else to say. It was hard to find the words because I spoke in Russian to make sure that she understood me and speaking Russian is hard work for me at the best of times. As I spoke, I paused to consider that my voice suddenly sounded just like my hers. Maybe it was the masks or the tears, or a combination of those things somehow, but it was undeniable and uncanny.
My uncle came back in and asked me why I wasn’t wearing an N-95 mask. I told him I put on what I was given downstairs! And why wasn’t I given a proper mask?! Back downstairs we went to get a proper mask. Social distancing protocols were thrown away as my uncle helped me put it on, touching the mask, my hair, my face, with his bare hands. Now I had a proper mask. Was that better?
We went back upstairs. My uncle (a practitioner of Traditional Chinese Medicine) held his palm to my grandmother’s forehead and a finger to her wrist. He monitored her pulse closely at all times, not to confirm life, but as a way to help communicate with her. When her pulse quickened or slowed, this told him something about how she was feeling. He told me to take off a glove and to touch her head too. I asked if that was ok, and he said it didn’t matter. I was embarrassed to say that I was also asking for myself. Whether it was ok for me.
I did take a glove off and touched her forehead, holding it there. I spoke to her quietly, telling her that I loved her again, trying to hold back my tears. I considered whether it was better to show her my raw grief or to hide it from her. What would she want?
After a few minutes, my uncle asked me if I wanted to go now. I did and I didn’t. I knew it was silly, but I was so sad that I hadn’t gotten any kind of signal from her that she could hear me there with her. I couldn’t help but want the impossible. Reading my thoughts, my uncle raised his voice to a near shout, calling in Russian quite close to her ear, “Mama! Mama! Can you hear me?” He did this a few times, but nothing changed in her demeanour.
I was close to deciding that it was time for me to go.
He shouted again, this time telling her, “Laura is here! Laurachka is here to see you!”.
He looked at me and told me that her pulse had quickened.
Just then, her right hand began to tremble and lift up into the air. She was reaching out for me! I took her hand and shouted in the best Russian I could muster “YES! I am here to SEE YOU and TALK TO YOU! I love you SO MUCH! I am HERE!” I willed for my love to become palpable in her hand. My uncle and I wept onto our masks. I continued to hold her hand, and shouted assuredly through my sobs, “WE WILL SEE EACH OTHER AGAIN ONE DAY!”
I made the choice to leave then, crushed, hoping that I had offered something meaningful to my Babushka in her final hours. I hoped that it was possible for a moment to possess the condensed solicitude of many squandered years. I imagined that when I squeezed her hand, my delinquent devotion finally flowed into her like sunlight, illuminating her way out.
I didn’t visit my grandmother enough before the pandemic and I haven’t visited her at all since the lockdowns started about six weeks ago. To say that I feel guilty doesn’t even begin to cover it. I keep thinking back to ten years ago when my family’s Black Lab, Nera, was old and suffering, and I was relieved that my mother was the one caring for her. Important to note is that this is a dog my 14-year old self begged for, with all the requisite pledges and promises to single-handedly walk, feed, love, and otherwise care for this creature. I did this for all of two months before tiring of my duties and ceding responsibility, one walk at a time, to my mother. I adored Nera, though, and when she grew white and hobbled, too pain-riddled to stand up for things that used to send her into manic sprees, it was too sad for me to watch. I didn’t accompany her to the vet’s office when she was being put down. I let my mother handle the pain for all of us and I hoped that the unconditionally loving companion who was with me through my teenage years, my marriage, and the birth of my first child, would forgive me.
I feel that I abandoned my grandmother similarly over the past couple of years. My friends and family assure me that with three young kids, a demanding full-time job, and little help at home, my life has been a collection of plates spinning precariously on my fingertips. They remind me of my recent, mysterious, probably stress-induced, autoimmune diagnosis. They urge me to cut myself some slack. I hear them and I want to agree, but the guilt is always there because, deep inside, I don’t actually believe that there is any excuse.
Knowing this would likely be the last time I’d see my Babushka, I drove to her Covid-19-infected nursing home this morning, paid for parking with surgical gloves, and clumsily donned the full-body protective armour given to me by the staff at the entrance. It was hard to tie a mask on behind my head with gloves on. I couldn’t tell if I was making knots, and if I was, if they were tight enough. It didn’t help that my hands were trembling a little.
I pushed the enormous, square, Braille-embossed “4” in the elevator with my elbow, while wondering whether it was better to breathe with my mouth or my nose. I decided on my nose, since the cilia (those tiny little hairs in there) might help to ensnare virus particles if any got past the masks. Now was it better to breathe quickly and shallowly? Or deeply and slowly? It didn’t matter because I was starting to cry, and controlling my breathing was becoming too hard to focus on.
From a room somewhere in my grandmother’s hallway came the sound of a woman’s continuous, high-pitched wail. It grew only slightly quieter as I ventured past, and remained as a kind of haunting soundtrack for the rest of my visit. My uncle Peter was sitting beside my Babushka’s bed when I walked into her room. She was asleep or unconscious or in a coma, or conscious but unable to communicate (as was usually the case over the past year or so). I didn’t know. She looked tiny and peaceful and also sounded like she was working hard to breathe, despite the mask and machine that were helping her do so.
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