A Granddaughter's Gift

These are the days of Saturdays. Saturdays are the days I take my daughter to visit with my father at the Assisted Living Facility nearby our home. Saturdays are the days we shop for Grandpa, do his laundry, and share time with him.

My father is rather young; he is only 69 years old. But, in 1993, at the age of 53 years old, my father was told he needed open heart surgery. A quadruple bypass. Those were the days they opened your chest. Now, technology has changed that and the surgery is a lot less barbaric.

After surgery, my father was in CICU (the critical intensive care unit). He was eventually downgraded to the ICU and eventually made his way to a cardiac floor but he stayed in the hospital for over two weeks, much longer than the average person following open heart surgery. This was because he had suffered a massive stroke during surgery. It was not something you could "see" visibly. However, he never asked for pain medication after surgery, and he was calling me by a different name, and he couldn't always get the words out he wanted to say. The surgeon wasn't worried, so it seemed. The nurses were however and we eventually got to the bottom of it.

Dad was never the same after that and two years later was forced to retire, too soon, at the tender age of 55. He began having grand mal seizures soon after he retired. Many times, the paramedics were called to save his life. His seizures were graphic and he would lose cardiac and respiratory functioning. These assaults happened over and over throughout the years, and usually when his neurologist decided to decrease his medications to assist his liver functions.

For a while, Dad was able to live alone. He could no longer drive because of the seizures and eventually he lost all eye sight in his right eye. Pretty soon, he would lose most of his eyesight in his left too. His cognitive functioning would decline, and he would be victimized by his own son. Eventually I stepped in to rescue him and he came to live nearby my family at an assisted living facility when the specialists believed, and I agreed, that he needed 24 hour supervised care. I would obtain guardianship and I would take on a very serious and stressful role of being the caregiver for my aging and very ill parent.

This particular Saturday, my three year old daughter in tow, we would visit my father, as we always did. We would bring him the milk he asked for and the treats he didn't ask for (but always managed to eat) and we would find him as we always did, in his apartment, waiting.

As soon as my father sees my daughter, they have their own special ritual. Grandpa gets her the "clicker" (he has the kind that is good for the blind and also for little three year olds that can quickly navigate the up and down buttons when there aren't a lot to navigate) and he barks at her to put on "her shows" and acts like this is putting him out some. She smiles at him and quickly changes the channel.

Soon after we arrive, I find my daughter asking Grandpa for cereal. Whether my daughter has just eaten or whether she is hungry or not, she asks him for the "snowflakes". He mutters under his breath and says, "okay" but quickly gets up and heads for the cupboard where the cornflakes are kept and then mixes her a bowl of cornflakes, sometimes spilling the milk down the counter and onto the floor. He then asks her where she wants to eat it. Sometimes she'll tell him the couch or other times she tells him the floor. He always obliges.

When my daughter gets tired of their eating game, she directs him to the floor, "Sit on the floor Grandpa!", she barks at him. Grandpa sighs and gets up from the couch and asks her where she wants him to sit and she points to him to that exact spot she has picked out and he grumbles but sits exactly where she wants him to sit. Sometimes she will play "doctor" by going to his linen closet, opening up his little tool box, and taking out tools. She will then get the kitchen towel and wrap his arm up and then tell him she is working on his arm. All the while, Grandpa sits there, patiently allowing her to work on him, never boring of her little games, and together they are content.

Sometimes, when I watch them, I remember back to when I was little. Most people would remember fondly about their childhood and doing the same things with their father. It is different for me. My father did not do those things then. He does now and it is enlightening, healing, and beautiful to watch. The stroke did more than just change my father for the worse. In a lot of ways, he became "different" and "better" and it makes me happy that my daughter will have these memories with him.

This particular Saturday, it was raining. Grandpa acted as amazed as my daughter, lifting her up on his windowsill and allowing her to watch the rain beating on his bay window. He even opened up the window to allow the rain to come in and tickle her face.

Soon though, my daughter went to a cupboard in my father's apartment and she brought out "the books". I always make my daughter bring her toys in her backpack but she never plays with them. There are much more interesting things to play with at Grandpas, and he has these books. They are his yearbooks from high school.

The book is worn on the cover and shows the schools colors and name and the date stamp is 1958. One by one, my daughter turns the pages, methodically going through the book, never skipping pages, asking my father on each and every page who each and every person is inside this book. My father will tell her, "That is John, he was in my class" or he will say, "I don't know that was a teacher that taught another class, that wasn't my teacher" or he will say, "That was me and that was Ernie, he and I would go drinking on Saturdays" and this goes on and one through each and every page of that yearbook.

I don't know what exactly draws my daughter to that book. To me, the pages and pictures would be boring. But, not to my daughter and not to my father. Neither of them ever tire of looking at that book. Each time, my daughter will ask my father the same questions over and over. Each time, my father will answer her, mostly with the same answers or sometimes with different ones but neither knows the difference.

It dawned on me that there are very few people who would take the time to look at a yearbook with their elderly parent and ask those questions. It sure doesn't strike me as something I want to do but yet my daughter, each time she is there, pulls out those yearbooks and gets to the one where my father is showcased and slowly they go through that yearbook, over and over and over again, with each time being a new walk through the past.

I wonder how much my father gets out of these visits. He never seems to tire of her or her questions and she never seems to bore of those pages or those pictures. When I try to peel them both away, my father will say, "Leave us alone, we're looking at our book". So, off I will go to the laundry room or to tidy up after my father throughout his apartment. And, I leave them to their book and their stories.

I hope someday my daughter realizes how much of a gift she has given her grandfather. My father chuckles through the pages, remembering things from the past, and talks about life and how it used to be, telling my daughter that a pack of cigarettes was only 25 cents and bread was 19 cents, and on and on, and my daughter just listens and turns those pages.

This was just an ordinary, rainy day, this particular Saturday. But this gift, the gift of memories past, the time and the attention, this gift that could not be bought or seen -- the love, was given. And what a wonderful gift to give.

Sources - personal experience and knowledge