kevincasper.net

i keep bumping into these lately:

1. things aren’t always going to remain the same.
2. people aren’t always going to be there.
3. i can’t make things be what i want them to be no matter how bad i want it.

i think that most emotionally mature human beings grapple with these issues sometime around junior high, but as a 34 year old man, knowing i was visiting a 93 year old woman who has been struggling with dementia for years, i was still expecting – completely and to the depths of my soul – the same experience that i remembered from when i was a little kid.

i thought i was going to grandma’s house.

but i was blindsided by the losing of her new york state of mind.

you gotta understand. this woman is my woman. a delightful, loving woman. i mean, yeah, ok, she’s my grandmother. and they’re typically very good like that. my other grandmother was great like that, too.

i am lucky.

but my new york grandmother always felt like someone i was really cut from. the blood line seems to have run from her father (who i never met) down to me. whatever aspects of my personality that stand out – for better or worse – come straight from her. very … comfortable … loving … woman. a little prone to (mis?)adventure perhaps, and not always as focused on the material essentials, the bottom line, or the most practical choice, but she always seemed to be thinking about what i was thinking about in a way that i could understand and appreciate.

and we weren’t always in agreement either. i remember once showing her the movie ‘raising arizona’ thinking she would love it. after about 45 minutes, she turned to me and goes, ‘this was made in hollywood? it’s horrible!’

but still, i always felt like were were in the same space somehow … talking. i could really, really talk to this woman.

when i walked in, she felt the same at first, but shortly after dinner, we had a little wine, and went out in the living room to talk. and at one point she turned to me and mary beth, my aunt, and said, ‘so how do you two know each other?’

so … it went from there. in and out. at times i knew she had no idea who i was (i heard her say to mary beth a few times, ‘that is a lovely gentleman, isn’t he? how do we know him?’) at least she liked me, even if she had no idea who i was …

but sometimes she would say, in her old voice, ‘hi kevin! do you need anything, dear?’

in and out. when it was out, it got kinda bad at times. she got frustrated. confused. sad. three emotions i never really considered her capable of having even though she is, of course, an actual living human being.

a little aside …

as important as the people in that house are to me, the house itself is probably the most powerful physical place in my life. i’ve been going there since i was born. it’s the only home i have. it was that magical place that i visited for a week or so every summer. i found a kitten in the lot next door when i was four and carried it home. it was flea ridden and pregnant. everyone turned it away several times, but i kept walking out and getting it and bringing it back. finally they let the pitiful thing inside and it had eight kittens. four of them lived there for years. the old house had nooks and crannies and a cellar and an attic and crawl spaces and ancient games in the closets and kittens everywhere and yankee games on the tv. magic around every corner.

i had a friend named tim (and his hot older sister, kim) who was about my age who lived behind our house, and every summer i would run over to his place as soon as i arrived. i had to cut through the empty lot, go through some trees, and hop the fence into his yard. they had a pool and a tree house and a computer and we used to play capture the flag in the vacant lot and burrow through the bushes between our properties on all day adventures that seemed to last forever and ever.

magic around every corner.

but now the house is in disrepair. a very old woman and her daughter live there alone. and when i walked into the lot shortly after arriving (as is my ritual), i quickly found that i physically couldn’t get to tim’s place anymore. time takes toll. it was almost completely grown over with thick brush and trees.

and it was at that moment, standing alone in the vacant lot, that i felt the last gasp of my childhood leave. poof … just like that. i can’t get it back anymore. there’s too much time in between. just memories and stories and feelings and dreams are left now. and i still dream about that place pretty regularly. and the dreams are always free and easy and exciting and full of love and adventure. and i hope that never changes. cause i don’t know how you keep going on if everything magical ends.

when i left, i sat on her bed and talked to my grandmother. she said she enjoyed the visit and asked me when i was coming back. i told her very soon, i hoped. she said good.

my aunt said it was time to go to the train station, and i got up to leave with that strange feeling that i might never see this person again.

but then i got a little treat.

as i was walking out of her bedroom, she looked up and, as clear as i’d seen her all trip, said with a big smile, ‘good bye, dear. be happy!’

be happy … my father would say ‘be careful!’ in such a situation. ‘you can’t be happy if you’re dead!’ is more his m.o.

he’d tell me something like wear my bike helmet correctly or be careful where i park with a girl in the car cause someone might sneak up and try to kill us while we’re making out or not to eat too much saturated fat because it will kill you or make sure you sit over the wing on the airplane because the people in those seats are the ones that are most likely to survive a crash or wear your seat belt or look both ways when you cross a bike path cause those bikes go pretty fast and if they hit you they’ll kill you or don’t drink too much booze cause it’ll give you cancer and kill you or …

yeah, well.

fuck all that.

i’m going to try – hard as it may be – to gratefully take gram’s advice on this one.

be happy.

be happy.

be happy.

be.

happy.

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