Grandma

Seven months had passed since my grandpa passed away and my grandmother and I had gone on with life. It wasn’t easy, we had our moments of sorrow but we had managed to push forward. I had finished kindergarten and we had managed to rent a house across the street from the elementary school. My grandpa had died before my sixth birthday and it was now the beginning of June.

My grandma was a tough lady. She didn’t play around when it came to school or discipline. I was the only one living with her but she had birthed eighteen children eleven of whom had passed away either in early infancy or very early childhood. She had seven living adult children. She and my grandpa had married when she was quite young and he was about ten years older than she was. She had been accepted to an apprenticeship in New York to become a teacher when she had met him. I am unclear of how they ended up together but needless to say they married and began the LaJeunesse family and she didn’t go to New York.

My grandma was a beautiful woman she was part Spanish and part Pueblo Indian, she had long black hair and big dark brown eyes. Her smile would melt your heart. She had the gift of making anyone feel loved and welcomed. She never met a stranger and always tried to help whomever was in need even though we didn’t have much ourselves. She loved all of her children and grandchildren unconditionally, even with all of their millions of flaws. She didn’t agree with what they did always but she loved them nonetheless. She had raised three of her grandchildren that I am aware of and I was the forth. She was a spectacular woman.

We would go to visit my grandpa’s gravesite every chance we had. There is some land in the Monzano Mountains of New Mexico that our family owns and it is there just for family burials. Monzano was about an hour away from Mountainair, where we lived. Someone would drive us up there at least once a week so that my grandma could talk to my grandpa. I was only six and of course I didn’t understand why she wanted to go so often to see a bunch of dirt and clear weeds but I didn’t ever let her go alone. I honestly don’t know why I was so protective over her but at six I was. We went to visit in the middle of May and my grandmother did the same thing she did every visit, she cleared the weeds and put down new fresh flowers on his grave. She would sit for I know it had to be an hour talking to him. Sometimes I would sit and listen to what she’d say like “and this Nicola is getting so big and beautiful you would love to see her now” and I would smile hoping that he could hear her. I would also give her time alone with him and I’d traipse around looking at the headstones to see who was buried where and how old they was when they died, a strange past time for a six year old I know. My grandma cried every time we went to see my grandpa’s grave. On this particular day I remember coming back from my investigating to find her ready to go. She had no tears in her eyes this time. I remember thinking that was odd but didn’t question her about it. She kissed her fingers and touched his headstone and said, “I will see you soon my love.” I remember that as plain as day. “I will see you soon my love”

She grabbed my hand and we made our way down to the car and got in for our trip back to Mountainair. I don’t remember who had driven us that day or even the car ride home, all I remember was that she didn’t cry and what she had said.

It was now the beginning of June and the sun was shining and the birds were chirping. I had asked grandma Beata (bee’ta) if we could make some cookies. She wasn’t feeling good this particular day and had at first said that she just wanted to rest. Of course being a selfish six year old I pouted and went to play outside. I came back in and sat by her on the couch. Hoping that my pouting face would make her change her mind. Eventually it did. She stood up and said, “Mira tu, Nicola vente aqui” (spelling is off and the jest of it was “look at you Nicole come here” and she walked to the kitchen.

We prepared the kitchen for cookie making. My grandmother made everything from scratch. We didn’t buy boxes of anything, so we started with all the ingredients and began our cookie-making day. I was so happy skipping along making cookies and so thankful that she agreed. We finished two batches and were on our last ones being put into the oven. My grandma was sweating and looked very tired, I looked at her and knew that she needed to sit down. I felt badly because I made her make the cookies so I told her that I could get them out of the oven when the bell rang she could go and sit down. She smiled and said, “okay mi hita I will, you can do that you’re a big girl”. I smiled because she had faith in me to finish the cookies even if it was just taking them out and turning the oven off. I ran to the bathroom and was in there for a bit. The bell went off but I was still in the bathroom. Grandma yelled from the living room, “Nicola!” and I yelled back, “Grandma Beata I’m not done” then I heard her walk into the kitchen. I finished what I was doing and washed my hands and returned to the kitchen to find my grandma lying on the floor grabbing her chest. The pan of cookies was all over the floor.

I ran over to her and remember being so scared again. All I could think was grandma please be okay. Grandma please get up. I started crying. I couldn’t be brave or strong because she was holding her chest and not talking to me. I didn’t know what to do. I ran to the phone and called my aunt Donna. “Donna come over here now grandma is on the floor and she’s not talking please come get her now” I ran back to my grandma and held her hand as she laid on the floor grabbing her chest with the other hand. I didn’t know what to do. I held her and stroked her hair. I cried and begged her to be okay. Grandma please be okay. Grandma please sit up please. She didn’t she was still breathing but I don’t remember too much about that. All I remember is begging her to please stop and sit up. I cried, “grandma I’m sorry I didn’t get the cookies, I’m sorry I made you make them, I don’t want the cookies grandma please sit up please” she didn’t. My aunt got there along with Jarrah and she pushed me aside. She started to cry and called for an ambulance. She searched for my grandma’s pills and asked her if she’d taken them today and I said “yes I make her take her pills everyday so she can be strong” and my aunt sat and held my grandma in her arms begging her not to go. I stood in the kitchen and saw the cookies everywhere and began to pick them up I got all of the cookies the batches that we had finished and the batch on the ground and I threw them away. I didn’t want the stupid cookies. I was sorry I ever made her get up from resting to make my dumb cookies. Jarrah rushed over to the trash in disbelief as to why I would throw away perfectly good cookies. I snatched a cookie out of her hand and yelled at her again just like I did when my grandpa passed away. She didn’t know what was going on she didn’t pay attention to anything. She was 100% kid and I didn’t see that then. I was a child but I knew way too much about what was happening. I looked into my aunt Donna’s eyes and could see the worry and fear. I stood there watching and crying. The ambulance finally arrived and stabilized my grandma. They put her on a stretcher and she was able to talk now. They were taking her to Albuquerque to admit her into the hospital for observation. I walked over to the stretcher relieved that she was okay. I said, “Grandma I love you and I am sorry I didn’t let you rest.” She replied, “Mi hita this isn’t your fault, don’t you ever think that this was your fault.” I kissed her and she kissed me back, she said, “Nicola I love you very much and I will be okay, we will be okay” the paramedics put her into the ambulance and I watched the lights and siren go on as they drove away. Not knowing that would be the last time I would ever feel my grandma’s touch or hear her voice again.

A week had passed and I was staying in my house but my aunt Donna was with me. She had gone to Albuquerque to visit my grandma during the week but wouldn’t take me with her. No one would come and get me to go and see her and I’d always be left with Jarrah and the same neighbor that watched us when my grandpa had died.

The day that the call came from Albuquerque will forever be etched into my memory. Jarrah and I were playing outside and I had heard the phone ring. I came inside because I wanted to talk to my grandma if it was she. I stood at the screen door and watched my aunt Donna while she was on the phone. Her face turned pale and tears started to roll down her face. I stood there with an all too familiar sick feeling in my stomach. NO GOD NO this can’t be happening again. NO not my grandma too. Please God NO I promise I’ll be a good girl. I promise I will let her rest please God NO! That’s all I could think. I watched my Aunt on the phone and then I yelled and screamed “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!” and I bent over onto the floor and kept screaming and yelling. NOOOO why??? I was so mad I was so angry. Why GOD? Why? My aunt got off of the phone and ran to me. She picked me up while I screamed and kicked her. I bit her and told her to let me go. “Let me go I hate you let me go now” I screamed at her. She said, “NO!” and she held me tight she rocked me and I fought her. I pulled her hair and kicked and screamed. I didn’t want her to touch me. I hated this why were they both gone now. Why am I all by myself? I continued to kick and scream but she wouldn’t let me go. She held me close and kept telling me “Grandma loved you Nicole she loved you so much, she will always be inside of you. You are just like her you are strong and you are brave and you love like she loved, please baby let me hold you” and I stopped I stopped kicking her and I stopped trying to escape and I just laid in her arms and cried and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore. I had never felt more alone in my entire life, all six years of it. Why would she leave me? Why did they both leave me? My aunt finally released me and I ran to the room that my grandma and I shared. I got into the bed and covered myself into the sheets. I got her nightgown and put it on so that I could smell her. I laid there and cried myself to sleep praying that when I woke up she would still be there reading her bible.

I woke up and she wasn’t there. I realized that I was alone. I had family yes but I was alone. The two people that meant the most in this world to me were now gone. What was going to happen to me? Where would I go? Who would take care of me? I didn’t want to live with my mom because she lived in Albuquerque way from all of my cousins and my aunt Donna. I sat in the bed and thought and thought about what was going to happen to me.

The next few days were a blur. All seven of the children came into my house. Yes it was MY house with MY grandma and they all started to go through her things. They went through all of her things and paid little to no attention to the six year old whose entire life had changed in the course of seven months. My mother was there but she barely acknowledged me, not because she didn’t love me but because she was in a state of depression from loosing her mother. My other aunts would ask me where grandma kept this or kept that. My uncles would ask me if this was mine or that was grandma’s. I walked around that house watching these people go through our life and take what they wanted. I would go into our room only to find that my mother and two of my aunts now occupied our bed. They were sleeping in it and now I know it was to be closer to their mother but I was six and that was my bed. I wanted back into my bed and they were ruining her smell. They were taking all that I had left of her and I was too little to do anything about it.

I would go to sleep at night crying but not loud enough for them to hear me. They were nothing to me none of them. I wanted my grandma back and I wanted my grandpa back. I wanted my life back, but I knew that the life I had was gone, the life I loved was no longer. I was now alone and I hated it.