Granny
Today is my grandmother’s 101st birthday. I’ll let the absurdity of that sink in for a moment. She’s a pretty funny old bat though.
(As a warning, my family is about to come off really mean. We might well be, but it probably comes from her side of the family anyway, and she takes it all in stride.)
Sometimes she’s really spot on, knows who we all are, what’s going on, cracks jokes, etc. Most of the time, however, some of this information is missing. So sometimes my dad is my grandfather (making my mother the ‘other’ woman), I’m anyone from her niece to her aunt, and everyone in her family is still alive. She asks after her parents (they’d be about 135 by now), her brother (dead 40 years), her grandmother (I can’t even do the math on that one), etc. Once she gets her mind on something it becomes the ‘theme du jour.’ So we often find ourselves going thru “The List of the Dead.” It goes something like this:
Granny: “And how’s mother?”
A Callahan: “Dead.”
Granny: “No. She was just here yesterday.”
A Callahan: “Probably not.”
Granny: “Well, what about my sister Marie?”
A Callahan: “Dead.”
Granny: “Really?”
A Callahan: “For about five years now.”
Granny: “Ah well.”
This fairly constant litany has resulted in a sign (note: made by my father) that reads, “I’m your son NOT your husband!” on one side and “Dead” on the other. If she’s really in a loop, we just hold up the sign. Like I said, sounds pretty mean, but my grandmother’s reaction is just “Eh, maybe next time.” Plus, she’ll just ask again in two minutes, so it saves time.
Happy birthday, Granny. I’ll be lucky to have your physical and mental capabilites at 30.
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