2001: Grandma passes away

The memory of receiving the news from my father in tears remains a rather detailed incident. I was at work, supporting a customer with some basic questions about AppleWorks and when I saw the North Carolina-based phone number on the other line, I knew it was urgent. The customer generously let me put him on hold to answer what I was hoping would be information regarding Grandma’s current condition; I had just seen her a week earlier, the doctors’ recent prognosis gave her at least a few months to live. Instead at was the news of her demise. How my stomach and heart sank. I hurriedly told Dad I would be on a plane tomorrow, hung up; I didn’t want to think about it. The customer had no idea what occurred as I calmly solved his issue, closed the call, then asked my boss Scott about how bereavement time worked. He just sent me home, said not to worry as he would cover everything because I needed to start juggling all the travel arrangements.

So began my final journey to the Midwest, namely to Central Illinois which is where I grew up for 14 years and spent another three as a young adult.

When I left for Austin in 1994, contact with my grandparents had declined greatly. There were birthday cards, some letters and occasional phone calls. It didn’t seem too different than my college years. I just didn’t take into account they were approaching their nineties while I was trying to get my act together.

The last time I saw Grandma, it was the during time of Grandpa’s funeral in the Fall of 1997. Her health appeared to be the same after I moved out. I figured she would outlive Grandpa by a few years for numerous reasons; spite readily come to mind. Then she broke her hip in 1999 on the same Thanksgiving week I drove out from Austin to retrieve my crap in North Carolina. The tragedy prevented the probable rude, awkward exchange Somara would have received from my parents (namely with Grand Inquisitor Torquemama) as they rushed out to Bloomington to handle the crisis.

Afterwards, the final couple years of her life became pretty unpleasant. Despite surgery in the Eighties to slow the progression of cataracts, she still went blind. Her broken hip also led to her being bed-ridden. I doubt she any insurance (private or public) would cover a replacement joint for a person over 90. This then made her longer capable of living alone in the house she inherited. Mom took over all of Grandma’s affairs and put her under managed care, aka retirement home. First it was one near them in Cary, NC but they moved her back to one in LeRoy, IL so she would have more familiar visitors.

From then on, I heard snippets but I never bothered to visit. The whole thing depressed me, I couldn’t stand the weather and I hated Central Illinois along with Raleigh, NC. Again, I didn’t calculate how long this untenable situation would continue. Grandma wasn’t dying from anything quickly, thus, I’d get around to seeing her once matters in Austin, Apple and my upcoming house settled.

By mid March 2001 I received a nasty e-mail from my brother Brian wanting to know where I was. The following day was his birthday so I wondered if he was pissed over a gift. Seems he and my parents had been calling the apartment while I was away working at the coffee shop. Maybe they were calling the wrong number or we lacked an answering machine; it didn’t matter with them, I was given the Antichrist title in the Eighties which made everything automatically my fault. Once I made contact and endured Brian’s disparaging language, I was informed of Grandma’s ill health which got her moved to the hospital. The diagnosis was probably cancer.

Fearing this would be the end, my Apple bosses let me take a week of vacation to fly North to say goodbye. I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of showing medical paperwork to receive discounted airfare, I think I used Priceline to score a flight from Austin to Chicago’s Midway for $300. I just had to deal with changing planes in northern Kentucky, picking up the rental car, cajoling Brian into let me spend the night at his house when I arrived (very late) and figuring out a dozen other things. The Bryants’ generosity was a great surprise. While I was in Bloomington-Normal, IL I got to couch surf in Steve’s studio. Those two saved me a bundle from the gouging I’d get from the local hotels; State Farm’s worldwide HQ is there; and my mother kept Grandma’s house to herself.

Brian was a lot cooler to me once I arrived. We stayed up for a couple hours to catch up while his wife and son slept. It was nice to have an adult conversation with my younger brother after 20-some years of fighting.

The next morning I hauled ass to Bloomington-Normal through the icy rain. How I quickly remembered hating Illinois weather around March. I should’ve packed mix tapes or CDs too. Midwestern radio remained equally atrocious and the limited rotation formed unpleasant emotions tied to this period, namely hearing “Yellow” by Coldplay; it does capture the sadness well. It was better than hearing the non-stop, going-nowhere coverage of the US spy plane the Chinese captured. How I wish that were the only international blunder of the Bush II administration in 2001.

I spent the following few days around Bloomington-Normal juggling my presence between the Bryants’, hospital visits with Grandma, talking to my parents, finally meeting my nephew Nick and taking in old haunts which provided the good times. I laughed at the local Republicans bragging about the economic growth they brought to McLean County…more crappy eight dollar-an-hour jobs which used to pay six when I left. Adventureland had moved to Normal, Garcia’s Pizza folded, Apple Tree Records disappeared, the North Street arcade was gone and the worst development was the original Steak n’ Shake that started it all in the Thirties was sold off to become a pizza place. Overall I wasn’t distraught. Austin’s restaurants and locally-owned stores became my preferred hangouts. I still took in the unhealthy delights I couldn’t find down South anyway: White Castle, Hardees/Carl’s Jr. (we have those now), Steak n’ Shake (this too) and Monical’s Pizza.

Grandma’s disposition and revelations were the biggest disappointment of my trek. I don’t blame her if she was pissed at me. I was a horrible person toward her, especially by the time I became a teenager, and quite ungrateful for all she had done. Without Grandma and Grandpa, attending university would’ve been a nightmare of loans no matter where I chose to go. Hell, I might not have gone at all since I was incredibly intimidated by the costs at age 17; today they’d be a walk in the park. I wasn’t much better in my twenties. The unwise decision to take the position with GDW ended disastrously and it evolved into financial dependence upon her through the my underemployment. How I regret my lack of patience with them too. I had no empathy for the elderly.

I didn’t naively think we’d have a reconciliation, I just figured we could talk politely, frankly and enjoy some time together. There were some areas I declared off limits, namely my relationships in Austin (it was part of a pact I made with Somara too). Dad suggested reading a book to Grandma, he and Mom had been taking turns doing this. I thought, why not, sounds like a great idea. He should’ve told me what to buy as I stupidly purchased a copy of The Great Gatsby from a nearby Barnes & Noble. It remains a personal favorite for me, I wanted to share it with her. Besides, Grandma was born in 1906 which meant she was a young adult when it was first published in its entirety (late Twenties). Maybe she could give me some insight on how Fitzgerald’s best work was initially received, what were her impressions, etc. Tell me what the zeitgeist was like then! Grandma was an English teacher until the late Sixties, she had to have an opinion, experience and/or anecdote around this. By the reaction I received, I might as well have chosen to read “Letters to Penthouse” instead. She just demanded a synopsis (I gave the best I could from memory, I hadn’t read it since high school), claimed she had never read it nor cared to and came the whopper…she didn’t care for literature such as novels. Baffled by this I brought up her career of 40-plus years. Grandma responded that her focus was grammar, punctuation and other nit-picky crap. This explained her prickly bad habit of correcting others (yes, I inherited this too, mine is weaker than hers).

To this day, I don’t know if Grandma was telling the truth or suffering from dementia. She did teach Shakespearean plays because Mom ridiculed her decades earlier when she was about to tell an anecdote we had heard many times before, “Yes, yes. When you taught Shakespeare back in Marseilles…” (a small town in Illinois, not France and they pronounce it MAHR-sales) “…the Earth stood still. We know, we know.” It did make me reassess her intellect as my memory jogged for recollections of Grandma reading anything other than letters, gossips rags, the local paper and TV Guide. I had nothing. Still, I give her the benefit of the doubt. Grandma did leave for university at 16 and had a master’s degree in Latin or English, Brian may know which. The latter fact about her always drew a chuckle when she uttered a four-letter word. You’d expect something more elegant or colorful from such an educated pallet. It’s similar to catching a suave, fashionable actor picking his nose (James Cagney caught Humphrey Bogart doing this).

The weekend in Bloomington-Normal passed and on Monday morning Grandma had some tests done. The results wouldn’t be known for a couple days. Her doctors’ educated guesses were telling us the recent symptoms probably meant cancer in her digestive areas, this would just confirm it.

With the vacation period winding down, I drove back to Midway to catch my flight home. Dad hitched a ride with me so Mom could keep the car. The trip North was understandably tense. At least he was over his Urban Cowboy musical phase.

The following week in Austin was a blur thanks to the release of Mac OS X. My group was spared the fuss since the server version didn’t debut for another couple months. I went back to my routine: work at Apple, work at Kenny’s, C++ class on Saturday morning, living with Somara, pondering if buying my under-construction house was a good idea (Mom gave me a check out of Grandma’s account to help, it’s OK, we followed the law on what the IRS allows and it was an advance on my inheritance), etc.

It was short lived as the opening stated. According to Mom, Grandma decided to give up on living because the prospect of spending any more time in the retirement home over the hospital was unacceptable. Even in death, this woman got to have the last word which is rather tragic.

At least I learned my lesson from the first journey. This time I flew to O’Hare which was closer to Brian’s house if I needed to make a detour there. The Bryants had the couch ready again (they’re saints!). I also weaseled a ride to Bergstrom through a co-worker so Somara didn’t need to take off from her job. There was a small flaw, I had to change planes in Minneapolis instead and I think the NCAA tournament was involved. O’Hare was a smart choice too, finding a White Castle for lunch was easier.

Grandma’s wake was a nice gathering. The funeral home let us immediate family members have time alone with her for about an hour before opening it to guests. It’s also the only instance I’ve encountered this odd tradition because we didn’t do it for Grandpa (Maier) or Grandma Maggi. We were allowed to write a final letter to her and have it placed in the coffin. I later read about this in a Douglas Coupland novel (allegedly, some thieves stole the letter Prince William wrote to his deceased mother Lady Diana, just to get the Royal Family’s DNA via the saliva on the envelope). Maybe it’s an Irish-English thing because Tony Curtis was buried with the contents of a small college dorm room. I wrote mine in broken French (I had the vocabulary, my grammar is weak, namely word order) to keep anyone else from reading it; Brian knows Spanish adequately, maybe he could piece it together. I mainly thanked her for my education and apologized for bolting to Austin (she thought I was bluffing up to the day I actually left) yet explained it worked out for the best.

Aunt Letty and Uncle Cliff came by to comfort Mom. There were other obscure relatives. Obscure? Mom is an only child whose parents were over 37 when she was born, therefore, most cousins are much older except with the Uncle Marty faction represented by Cousin Sheila (we attended her wedding in 1982). Nobody involved with the family farm showed because Mom fired those idiots as soon as she had power of attorney. The biggest surprise for me was Brenda. Her last name used to be Koontz but she had divorced years ago and remarried. Brian and I used play with her son Robbie while we lived in Champaign; more funny stuff surrounding her later.

Grandma’s funeral was the next day. I chose to do one of the readings in her memory. Dad and I had a huge fight before with my refusal on Grandpa’s. I didn’t do it to be difficult, I declined since I knew he wasn’t very religious; he was pretty critical of the Roman Catholic church in our conversations, namely the Irish-run parishes. Grandma on the other hand was different. Catholicism was a huge part of her identity just as much as being Irish and a high school teacher. Here I put my grievances aside to honor her memory.

Things wrapped up in Wapella which where my grandparents are buried. It’s south of Bloomington-Normal and considered part of Clinton, IL; the primary community Grandma’s family and its extensions settled during the Irish Diaspora of the 1840s. The more unnerving thing was seeing my parents’ burial plots next to Grandma and Grandpa’s graves again. They bought all four back in 1997 and it was so weird hearing Dad talk about them so matter-of-factly like they were a used car.

Everybody dispersed yet agreed to meet later at a chain restaurant in a few hours.

Due to time constraints today, namely having to get ready for this evening’s Devo concert in the new Austin City Limits facility, I will stop here, flaws and all, label this part one since there’s more, amusing stuff to follow. Some involving Apple’s (no longer) secret retail stores, a bit with Brenda (nothing Mrs. Robinsonesque) and my last visit to Chicago.