By Francesca
Sometimes life throws you too much to process at once. After I broke up with my boyfriend of two years, I barely had enough time to tell my friends when, just five days later, my mom called me to say that my grandmother, Mother Mary, was being hospitalized in Pennsylvania. I left my apartment and went home that day.
At first I didn’t know how bad things were; none of us did. In the waiting room at the ER, my uncle and I caught up casually, and I mentioned the breakup.
“Don’t tell Mom, okay?” my uncle requested. “I don’t want her to hear anything to upset her.”
I frowned. I didn’t agree the news would disappoint my grandmother; she had liked my boyfriend, but she wasn’t so traditional as to fret over my marriage prospects. As a two-time divorcée herself, she had excellent perspective on romantic woes.
But at that moment the doctor called us in with the results of her CAT scan and radiographs, and then I remember him saying those words that blot out other thought:
Lung cancer. Metastasized. Advanced.
And those that still echo the loudest: “a matter of weeks.”
The rest of her life measured in weeks. It seemed absurd.
It was impossible to process.
My grandmother, however, was just happy the doctors said she could go home.
While the three of us cared for her at my mother’s house, my grandmother handled everything with grace and her characteristic humor, but little sentimentality. We were given a pamphlet that encouraged hospice caregivers to reminisce with their loved ones and ask for stories of the past. But my grandmother would have none of it.
She didn’t want to look at old photo albums, and she didn’t want to say anything approaching a goodbye. She refused to lie in a bed, so instead we set up camp on the couch.
But our family is Italian, so trying to get our relatives to tone down their emotions was a different story. For them, overcooking the eggplant is reason enough for tears. Learning our matriarch was in hospice called for opera.
So our family members visiting from South Philly were crying before we opened the door. But then, so were we.
Seeing relatives file in made it real; they were coming to say goodbye.
I busied myself with the trays of food—of course, we had food—so that they’d have some time alone with my grandmother.
Imagine my surprise when a few minutes later, I heard laughter. I brought in the tray of snacks.
“Look what she wrote!” Aunt Nana said when I came in. She held up my grandmother’s whiteboard:
“Did you bring the Dago red?”—slang for homemade Italian wine. Then my grandmother snatched it back, and added, “I’ll give you $100 for two quarts.”
Her messages were so charming and funny, my family started taking pictures of them. That set off my grandmother’s maudlin-meter, so her messages got increasingly profane.
I now have Kodak moments of my relatives holding signs with messages of hope, such as: “Eat Shit.”
Suitable for framing.
My grandmother entertained our extended family for several hours, holding court the way she always did. As they were leaving, one relative jokingly scolded us for “scaring” them by saying she was close to the end, when she “clearly” had plenty more time.
She didn’t.
Her decline happened whether we were ready for it or not. My grandmother soon became too tired for many visitors. Her waking hours became fewer. Her handwriting on the whiteboard became more slanting and wiggly. Her speech became very difficult.
Though I could usually understand.
One day, my mom convinced my uncle to get out of the house with her, and I took care of my grandmother by myself. She wanted to nap on the couch with the television on and her feet in my lap, and I was more than happy to oblige. I was thrilled to know what exactly she wanted and to be able to do it, for a change. So, I sat still as a statue, as she slept to the lullaby of her favorite shows—Judge Alex, Judge Judy, Divorce Court.
I must say, Divorce Court is an excellent program.
When she woke, I prepared a balanced lunch of her specific request: lukewarm coffee, Sprite, light beer, Milano cookies, and a variety of sorbets.
We were rocking hospice.
After lunch, she wanted to sit up for a while. I wanted to give her a conversational break from answering the same questions about her health: Are you okay? Are you hungry? Are you thirsty? Do you have to go to the bathroom? She was ailing, I knew, but she was still in there.
And knowing her as I do, I thought she might be bored.
But the only thing non-hospice related that I could come up with was my breakup. Not because I wanted to unburden myself—any part of my life a few weeks ago seemed miles and miles away—but I wanted to talk to her without taxing her.
So I commenced a monologue. I didn’t know if she was listening, but occasionally she would nod, so I barreled on. I explained the lead-up to the breakup, the first signs of trouble, the ways I tried to fix it, the ways it couldn’t be fixed, the things I’ll miss most, the things I did wrong, and what I’ll try to do better next time.
I was rambling.
Until my grandmother stopped me and motioned for her whiteboard. I held it steady for her while she inscribed, slow enough to build suspense:
“Motto—Who Needs It???”
Then she burst out laughing, which made me crack up, and we both dissolved into a fit of giggles.
Who needs it? In other words, enough, let it go, next.
Toward the end of my relationship with my boyfriend, I had been consumed with considering every angle of interpretation, every possible misstep I might have taken, every potential outcome that didn’t come true. But with one simple phrase, my grandmother had offered an instant dose of perspective.
Perspective doesn’t mean seeing all; it means seeing what matters.
My grandmother had never been the most reflective person. She couldn’t afford to be. Growing up in very difficult circumstances taught—or forced—her to act instead of ponder, to escape instead of fix, and to move on instead of regret. This may not be the perfect way to live, but it was the only way she could survive.
I grew up the child of several troubled marriages. I am the watcher, the thinker, the healer. I read people, I adapt, I fix—or try to. And if it fails, I stew on all the ways it could’ve gone differently. This is not always a bad way to be.
But it’s not always good.
Bad things happen, and dwelling about how they’re bad, why they’re bad, doesn’t make them any better. Sometimes you need to ask yourself, “Who needs it?” Evaluate your present, not only your past. See if what you’re doing to yourself is helping you. If the answer is no, then “Who needs it?” Let it go.
There were so many times before that day that I worried that my grandmother wasn’t having the best hospice experience, although I had no idea what that might be. When my grandmother rejected the sentimental stuff, the nostalgia, the goodbyes, I feared we weren’t creating the right environment or supporting her correctly so that she could process and make peace with what was happening.
But who needs it?
My grandmother didn’t waste her last days looking backwards. There was nothing that needed processing. Life happens, whether we approve it or not. Instead, she chose to live in the moment, to savor, to laugh, to enjoy those around her.
This was the way she lived, and the way she died, and it was the wisdom I most needed to hear from the only woman who could give it.