I left Portland yesterday and I stayed in Spokane my first night with my sister, Kevin, and my cousin Michael. It was really good to see them. Portland was raining when I left it, the last person I said bye to was Justin, it was the second time we had said goodbye to each other. I cried when this slipped out of my mouth: “I am scared.” My last few weeks in Portland was a series of goodbyes, and tying up loose ends. I feel the first time in a great while ok with being alone. I know that there are things I need to figure out on my own. Sometimes it feels really impossible.
Now I am in Montana. It was a beautiful drive with the leaves changing, and the people and cars growing more and more scarce. I realized that the last time I was in Montana in the fall must have been when I was a small child. I was romanticizing that I would be living in Montana, taking care of my grandmother, and being the Fleming family oral historian. On the way up I listened to old tapes that my father had recorded. These tapes are old oral history from 1987 of many members in my family, some alive some deceased, some I had met, others I hadn’t. I was three years old at the time of the recordings. The tapes are full of stories and laughter- and also of things that were uncomfortable to recount. My grandmother’s voice was so different then. You can hear in the background kids running around, talking and crying, playing high-pitched piano notes, opening and closing the screen door to my grandmother’s old house. I thought of the backyard that opened up to the garden and rickety swing set. You can hear the trains rolling by across the street, and her old phone ringing- all of this is breaking up the conversation. I can tell from these recordings how much my grandmother had been through. As well as how much all of the kids in her family, my aunts and uncles, had been through when my grandfather died. There is too much to report, too many stories, and the sadness that my grandmother might have endured.
When I walked in to her house today, I realized that her health was no joke. I am care giving for her now, and her life is in my hands. While she sleeps the hum of her oxygen is pumping. I give her a cup of pills at night and in the morning, I made her soup and a salad. After she ate, she starting talking about my eldest cousin who had died in a car accident, and my aunt who died several years ago from pancreatic cancer. I wondered if when it comes close to dying, if you start thinking more and more about who you might meet up with again after you die. My grandmother told me that the lord forgives everything, but she said that it is much harder thing, to forgive yourself. She had realized that two months ago, when her health started kicking. I told her that sometimes before going to bed I tell myself good things. Every time that people leave her house, I wonder if it is with a thought that it may the last day that they will spend with her.
Post Script: Below is an oral recording that I took of my grandmother and I. It is the last recording of her voice. I used an excerpt of my interview with her coupled with a video that I took near Snake River, Idaho, on my way from Montana to Nevada- en route to Europe. I miss my grandmother dearly. (post script written March 2011)
