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The last visit to my Great Grandmother; a minor getting liquored up before BBS meet

2004-04-28 - 10:47 a.m.

As far back as I can remember, I'll be doing something random and my mother will suddenly come in.

"We're going to Great Grandma Opal's next week/tomorrow." She gave me that one just yesterday.

Now when I was younger I knew this meant the full-fledged visit: Getting up at 8am on a weekend; tucking my shirt in; being driven for over two hours to San Bernardino county; getting patted on the head and cooed over by soon-to-be-dead people I didn't know; having to say grace at dinner and pretend I wish a Christian so Opal wouldn't get distraught...

But most of all I remember the waiting, the endless, lulling, paint-drying way one hour would hobble by the next with its walker. We wouldn't leave the place until 10pm sometimes. For a little kid around a bunch of elders that isn't just patience, that's a testament to the human will.

But even as a little kid there was cool stuff. There was Great Uncle Jack, with his unbelievably enormous gut, spindly chicken legs, and that funny-uncle-mafioso way about him. I was too quiet for the guy, but I occasionally went to the back and fooled around on his pool table, or guzzled a soda from this fully-stocked normal fridge. In later years he decided to cover up the table with a cover and some fake spilled beer. I always thought the fake beer was vomit.

My favorite point was (I think) her 93rd birthday. We were scheduled to do our usual visit and then go out for a huge chinese feast. When I'm talking feast, I mean reserving one of those long-ass Medieval court styles of table. There were many old people, but some midddle-aged ones here and there. I remember this one guy I'd never seen before who sat kinda next to me, who didn't feel like drinking alone and let me sip/order stuff like a Blue Lightning. I was getting drunk on his dime! It was sweet.

On a side story note, the best part was our having to politely leave at 7:00 or 7:30. Not that I wasn't enjoying the chinese food and booze, but that night was the very first time I ever went to a BBS meet at Guido's place. I was still a shy 15-something teenager, getting nervous at the idea of all those people sitting on the stoop of some house I'd never seen. But I stepped through it and entered a world of noise and some random girl (Angel, I think) mentioning what some guy was doing. I passed by reams of people I didn't know, out to the backyard, complete with a brick-laced pool and a dessicated jacuzzi. Sitting there in the darkness, up on this long brick square, were The Captain and Julia. I barely knew The Captain then, and Julia only a little bit more.

I spent the next 3-4 hours warming my hands by their collective fire of talking and company. It wasn't until a few days later that I got initiated into being a real teenager: Julia had said "why didn't you tell me you were hot?" That sparked off my first disastrously short but sweet relationship, which more or less ended the night that she introduced me to her friend, the lovely Selene. That was at an ice-skating BBS meet, interestingly enough; alot of things in my life changed on that night, which is probably why I can still remember the date: December 15th, 1996.

I could go on and on, but back to the main story...

So as the years have passed I've changed alot, as you can see, along with every one else in the family--Ma, Gran, the presumably retarded dingoes on my father's side of the fence--but not Great Grandmother Opal. You could set your watch and calendar date to her entirely pink bedroom, her trembling "Oh God bless you, honey; I pray for you every day", and that lost sortof thoughtful stare about her.

Each visit gets shorter and shorter these days. She's 99 now and needs oxygen fed through her nose. For her, getting out of bed is rare; that metal chamber pot of hers is an uncomfortable symbol of that. And with all that time in her life that's passed, she's occasionally forgotten this or that. A few times ago, for instance, I was standing in her bedroom and she looked at me in this curious 'who is that?' way. "Who's your young handsome friend, dear?" She asked my mom. When she did remember, she'd commented that I hadn't come to visit in years...and while I like her and all, I kinda wish she was right.

Which makes this last visit a breath of fresh air..and a sigh, kinda. Her health has really deteriorated from what I've heard. Ma has a feeling Opal will die soon, and Ma has this uncanny spider sense about death (being a Shaman and all). Just as Opal has said for about 8 years now, though, she just wants God to take her to wherever and leave the old body she has.

And I hope she goes well, into the night, with that same wrinkly soft smile on her face.

Time to go.

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