November 11
 
 

 
 

My Mom was here this weekend, and early Saturday afternoon I headed over to Angelo & Eleanor's to visit.  When I got there, the house was empty, which is always a little creepy, but I walked in through the kitchen to the dining room and noticed that they'd bought me a stuffed bear from Foxwoods.  The bear was holding a note that my grandfather had obviously written:
 

 
 
 

I moved closer to the note, picked it up, eyes filling with tears, and it was at that very moment I realized that I was doing the exact right thing with that one part of my life.  That by being here, and, more specifically, by being here while my grandparents are here, I was doing absolutely right by them, and that's rare.  I am never so much convinced that I'm living my life in a way whereby I'm doing the most good for myself or other people, but it was an amazing moment of clarity and just for that time, I felt ok about everything.

There are a lot of stories I didn't tell about the months Angelo was in the Home, ones that come to mind vividly now, because it was this time last year he was still there.  I didn't tell the stories because they were too much for me then, though I never forgot.

One Sunday, Eleanor and I went to visit.  It was blustery, and grey, the kind of day we knew we'd not be able to sit with him outside.  He met us in the lobby, though we were never quite able to figure out how he got down there because he was being kept wheelchair bound.  The director of the place told us to quickly, hurry to the dining room, because there was music, so we wheeled him in and took seats amidst some of the other, more mobile residents.  Two people were there from a local church.  They'd set up a keyboard and passed out sheet music and began singing.  "Follow along!"  the woman said, smiling at the room.

I studied my grandfather, who sang loudly and off key and if I closed my eyes, I wouldn't have known the difference between him and the man with the terribly palsy who'd, only three days before, told his wife that he'd never in his life played the harmonica when she took his 50 year old harmonica out of the case and offered it to him.  I wouldn't have known without looking whether it was my grandfather or a stranger.  Listening to the broken voices sing songs they'd known their whole lives--songs of their generation--I found that I could not watch any of the people, including my grandfather, because it hurt so badly.  I'd like to say I only hurt for Angelo, but it wasn't true.  I hurt for myself and for my Grandmother who was also steadfastly not focusing on anyone until we focused on eachother and silently, our hands met under the table, which is how we sat until the singing was done.
 
 
 
 
 

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