For people who like a story only if it has some sort of moral, I'll tell you this: the great thing about ice-cream is that it can put a smile on the face of a fiercely independent woman who has lost the ability to walk due to a freak accident. Now go read someone else's blog.
. . .
Last night, when the sky got to be a darker blue and I began feeling an occasional breeze, I decided to turn down Tant Röne's invitation to go to the beach together and take a walk to the waterfront on my own, camera in hand, to watch the sunset & the surfers, get some ice-cream. I'd hung out with my aunt and had lunch with her earlier during the day, so I felt OK with my decision.
When I told my grandmother I was thinking of going for a walk by myself, she surprised the shit out of me by telling me if I'm going solo, maybe she could join me if I took her out on her wheelchair.
Now, in case you (?) missed the previous posts, once again, I'm talking about a fiercely independent woman who has reconciled herself to being homebound. She says she's gotten used to it—having a leg that's missing enough bone structure to support the mechanics of walking, moving slowly throughout her house with a walker, being dependent on others to do her shopping for her, and not leaving the house except for doctor's visits. During her last visit, my mom moved everything my grandmother might need in the kitchen to the lower cupboards, so she spends a lot of time cooking and cleaning and not sitting still as usual. At the same time, as far as I know, since February when she returned home to Israel from the hospital in Turkey, she's only left the house once for pleasure: my mother convinced her to go out for dinner on the last night my parents were visiting her, to celebrate both father's day with my dad and my aunt's birthday.
It's a production for her to leave the house. She lives up one flight of stairs. In order to go downstairs, she has to use her walker to get to the top of the stairs at the end of the hall. Once she gets there, I bring her a tiny stool to lower herself from the walker to a sitting position on top of the stairs. Then, she descends the stairs, one by one, on her behind. When she reaches the bottom, she drags herself on the floor from the bottom of the stairs to the door of the building. She says she will never allow anyone to carry her—not me, not any burly man, not any trained EMTs. I know she won't.
Meanwhile, while she's been cleaning the floors with her behind (she puts on loose yoga pants over her dress for this step of the process, which she takes off and puts in her bag once she's in the wheelchair), I've taken her wheelchair downstairs, put the tiny stool and the walker back into the apartment. I meet her downstairs, open the wheelchair, put the breaks on, and watch her pull herself into the chair. Then, we're off—grandma with her bag in hand, me, leaning in forward a bit so I can hear her while pushing her down the street, hoping the cars see us, and grateful I'm wearing a white skirt. The sidewalks are even more uneven than the streets and much narrower, even without asshole drivers parking on sidewalks.
By the waterfront, we stop to listen to live music for a while—apparently, the city pays musicians to play by the waterfront, winter and summer alike. Pretty impressive. The band is playing Gypsy Kings covers, and anything in Spanish is attractive to a Ladino speaker. We hang out for a bit, trying to see if my grandmother can understand the words. She tells me she enjoys watching the percussionist because he's moving to the beat the whole time while the guitar player, in contrast, just plays without seeming to enjoy what he's doing, at least visibly.
As we "stroll," my grandmother points out restaurants she used to frequent, places she had resolved to go to every week with her friends. Then, she points out a good ice-cream place. It takes me a second to realize this isn't a landmark of nostalgia; it's a possibility for the present.
—Want some?
—Yes.
And in true grandmother fashion, with the pretext that she needs change, she refuses to let me pay. I put on her breaks, leave her facing the water, and run across the street to get her a mocha ice-cream cone. By the time I get back to her, our ice-creams are dripping, and I'm strangely grateful that they are. We promptly lick the sides of our cones and wipe our hands on the huge piece of paper towel the ice-cream guy gave me when I asked for a couple of napkins. She looks happy even though the mocha ice-cream is a little less flavorful than she'd like. She even lets me take her pictures licking the cone—the power of persuasion: I tell her I'll send these to mom and it'll make her happy to see my grandmother went out. Of course, there is the required gadget-arm shot, which is difficult to pull off with a bulky camera and in dim street lighting.
I don't mind.
I also don't mind that I threw out my back today or that it hurts to do pretty much anything. I only hope I don't have to sneeze for a couple of days.
We are Matilda & Tilda, blurry & blissful in this moment.
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