“Remoted” Workday 211 / Day 319 (Friday)

Today is the anniversary of Mummu’s death. I was married and living in Tennessee at the time. Mom called with the news that Mummu was in the hospital and not going to make it. After the call and talking with the now-former husband, I stared at the flight schedules on the computer screen. Pushing the button to book a flight was terrifying. It felt like as long as I didn’t book it, it would just be a sad, bad dream, but once the ticket was bought it would all be very real. 

The day before the flight I took the car for an oil change. The day of the flight I drove myself to the airport in Nashville and flew home alone, wondering why I had left my family in Massachusetts to live in Tennessee with a husband who couldn’t be bothered to come with me to my grandmother’s death. Hell, he couldn’t even be bothered to drive me to the airport.

I sat with Mummu in her hospital room. She was in a medically induced coma and looked frail and tiny in the hospital bed. Her mouth hung open like an Italic O. The nurses came in and out while I sat there quietly. I didn’t even know what to do, so I just sat there in the chair beside the bed. It wasn’t unusual for us to sit quietly at her apartment, but back then, she wasn’t dying with me staring at her. Was she aware of what was going on around her? 

Mummu and Me, 2001.

During her life, Mummu was a contradictory mix of fiercely independent and dependent. She lived on her own in a high rise apartment that started out as elderly housing and later included younger tenants. Each small concrete deck on the building was accessed via sliding glass doors and shared by two units. The guy next door would often lean on the railing and smoke on his side of the deck. Mummu was afraid of heights and never went on the deck. From the decks on her side of the building, the old site of the Historical Society could be seen in the street below and rolling hills beyond Greek Town could be seen in the distance.

Even after multiple knee surgeries and cancer and a mastectomy, Mummu insisted on living alone and independent in her own apartment. She didn’t want “to be a bother” to anyone. In her independence, she was completely dependent upon on Mom and my sister for shopping. She never drove, and in her more active years she walked and took the bus to the grocery store, but as she got older and battled breast cancer twice and knee problems, going out was increasingly difficult.

In Mummu’s later years, while I was living in Tennessee, illnesses and family stress and caretaking were happening and I wasn’t around to help. My life choice came with a bonus buttload of guilt. Mom dealt with doctor appointments where Mummu would nod her head to everything, and then in the car ask what the doctor said because she hadn’t actually heard it.

Mom and my sister provided emotional support. They grocery shopped for their own homes and Mummu’s. They each called to ask if Mummu needed anything before regular trips to the grocery store. The answer was often “no,” and then the very next day, an urgent call would be received that there was no food in the house and groceries were desperately needed. Schedules were shuffled, another grocery trip was squeezed in after work, and when the goods were delivered, it would be discovered the pantry and refrigerator were still full from the last shopping trip.

Despite repeated offers from my sister for Mummu to come live at her house where she would have her own rooms on the main level that were equivalent to the size of her current apartment, Mummu insisted on staying at her own place. It seemed puzzling at the time, because it would have simplified things for everyone. After my many years of living alone, though, I understand Mummu more.

Mummu landed in the hospital that final time after her neighbor of the shared deck heard her screaming in pain during the night and called for an ambulance. She passed away at the hospital within a day of my arrival. Mom said Mummu was waiting for me. While meeting with the funeral director, Mom said I was the daughter Mummu wanted, but she was the daughter Mummu got stuck with. This explained a lot. It also broke my heart for my Mom. It still does.