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THE LETTER
It’s July and it’s hot already. We have a Santa Ana condition, hot dry winds from the desert. So much dust flies around that it plays havoc with my allergies, and my skin gets so dry…don’t even ask!
I’m in bed, facing the day from hell. Today is my day to weigh in at Weight Watchers and this afternoon is the annual Independence Day Family Picnic. That thought alone makes me groan.
As I drag myself out of bed I stare at the treadmill with dread. I don’t bother with the sweatsuit today. It’s too hot. I must look a sight in my over-sized sleep shirt, white socks and sneakers, and I studiously avoid looking in the mirror. It’s not a sight I want to contemplate, but at least I’m exercising.
A few hundred years ago, my body type would have been considered pretty close to ideal. It’s my bad luck that the ideal today is the body of a skinny fourteen year old. That definitely does not describe me. My body more closely invites comparison with the women in Titian’s paintings, the curvy body and hips suggesting the promise of fertility. Then there are my wild and unruly red curls… whatever they suggest.
Just a few days ago I was at Cantor’s, the neighborhood deli. They have a big and beautiful, sepia toned, wall mural of the city’s past there. It pictures some bathing beauties wearing the swimming costumes of bygone days. They sure covered a lot more skin than today’s bathing suits and bikinis do.
Those ladies would be viewed as positively plump today. I sigh at the thought that I was born too late to be appreciated, and I picture my zaftig body gracing that mural.
The phone rings as I step off the treadmill and it’s my sister Lucille. She’s the one who got the great looks, the great body, the great metabolism and the successful lawyer for a husband.
She didn’t have to hear, ”So what’s new? Seeing anyone?” all the time. They never worried that she’d find a fine husband, they weren’t so sure about me. I’ve faced those questions at every single extended family gathering since I turned twenty one. I hate it!
****
Today, Lucille sounds more agitated than usual.
“Grandma Sal is at Cedars Sinai Hospital and you’ve got to get over there right away. It’s her heart. She’s insisting she has to talk to you right away. I’ll meet you there, on the fifth floor.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, but hangs up. No comforting words, or hopeful words… nothing.
My grandmother…I picture her… she’s a character and a half. She’s been divorced for decades and grown old doing pretty much everything she wanted to, husband or no husband. She followed her own course, no matter whom she outraged, especially my very proper mother and aunts.
I wish I had inherited more of grandma’s qualities, especially her sense of adventure and fearlessness, and her resilience. I have the same hazel eyes that she does. Her hair would have been good too. Even at eighty, her gray head of hair, in the simple blunt cut that she wears, is still full, thick and shiny. Her face does evidence some well-earned wrinkles. Yet, it still indicates a certain vitality. I can’t imagine her failing physically. I’m not nearly ready for that.
Her heart problems are pretty new. My grandmother is not one who talks about her aches and pains. I feel guilty at the momentary thought that this episode in the hospital may get me out of going to the dreaded family picnic. I head for the shower and get going.
On the drive to the hospital, I replay memories of my grandmother in my mind and worry about the changes that are coming.
When I get to the hospital I find that Grandma Sal is in I.C.U. and they’re controlling her visitors. Lucille looks ashen and tells me, “It’s really bad. Word is she may not make it. How could this heart thing have come on so quickly?”
I keep to myself the thought that, at eighty, grandma would probably be delighted if, when it was time, death came quickly. She’s seen a lot of people who died slowly in her time.
I saw it myself when my dad died from Cancer. Surgeon after surgeon cut and then cut again, while dad prayed earnestly for release. I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy much less on one I love!
As I’m settling down to wait, a nurse in green scrubs comes our way and asks for me. I step forward.
“Are you Clara Hellman?” she asks.
“I am.”
A buzz of conversation starts in our little family group as the nurse informs me that they will be taking my grandmother in for an angiogram shortly, but grandma insists on talking to me first.
I follow the nurse down the hall and hear whispered questions behind me. I’m the one in the family who tries to keep a low profile. I try to be invisible. Why am I being singled out, I wonder.
We pass one room and then another. Each is painted in that boring institutional beige color. I become acutely aware of a strong medicinal smell, somehow mixed with the pungency of various cleaning solutions, used to keep infection at bay, I suppose. Instead of feeling reassured by it, I feel like I’m entering the place at my peril.
As I come into the room and approach her, I ask, “Grandma, what’s going on here?” She waves me forward. Even as I near her, I have trouble understanding her labored speech above the noises and clicks and beeps of the machinery and monitors she’s attached to.
I drag a chair close to the bed to be able to hold her hand, and place my face close to hers, that face I’ve loved so long. Her breaths are short and her voice raspy.
“Sweetie!” The mere exclamation seems to exhaust her. She begins again in a moment. “Dearest, I want you to do something for me; take over something I started a few years ago. I think I’m running out of time.”
She reaches into the bedside table and hands me an envelope and says, “Take this. When you read it, you’ll understand what to do. You have a level head and you’re smart. You always were. If I don’t make it, you’ll see to it that my wishes are carried out.” She searches my face, as if for confirmation.
“The nurses want to get me ready, so you better go.” With that she waves me out of the room. First I reach down to kiss her cheek and she pats my hand and sighs. As I turn to go, she says, “Keep this between us. Nobody else needs to know.”
“Don’t worry, grandma. I won’t say anything.” Then I slip the envelope into my bag and go back to the waiting room.
As I reach my waiting family, Lucille asks, “What was that about?” I answer truthfully, ” I don’t really know”, but add, ” She’s frightened of course. I think she just needed some reassurance.” I hope it will ward off questions that Lucy or mother might ask, but it doesn’t.
“You’re still grandma’s pet, aren’t you. She doesn’t turn to mom, to her own daughter, or to me, but to you. Always it’s you!”
“Lucy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know it’s true, Clara. Even my children, she doesn’t really care about. They’re her only great-grandchildren for God’s sake! Did she ask to see them? No, she just wants to see her precious Clara. She’d probably be happy to leave her whole estate to you. Is that what all the secrecy is about? You’re making sure of your inheritance?”
“Lucy, it’s beneath you to talk this way, here in the hospital; and you know I’m not like that.”
“Yeah, I’m the evil sister. You, on the other hand, are pure as the driven snow” she sneers in a stage whisper.
With that she turns away and finds a seat at the farthest part of the waiting room. My mother has followed this scene with no comment. She just shakes her head and turns away, a pained expression on her face. Whether she shares Lucy’s opinion, I don’t really know.
Eventually all of us settle down to wait and we all retreat to our own thoughts and memories. I try to put aside what just happened and sit thinking about my grandmother and the memories I have of her instead.
I