Getting to know Grandma all over again – Nagem | Raleigh News & Observer

Standing in the middle of the aisle in Walmart, my 91-year-old grandmother told me she needed to buy some sort of toilet-cleaning gel.

“Why?” I asked. “I gave you that toilet wand.”

“I don’t know how to use it,” she said, leaning in a bit as if she were embarrassed.

I assured her I could show her how to use it and then noticed a middle-aged woman watching us and chuckling. I laughed, too.

“I bet our conversations in Walmart are quite entertaining,” I said to the stranger and to Grandma.

“Oh, I’ve been there,” the woman said as she walked away.

So many of us have been there – shopping with a parent or grandparent who needs our help, spending five minutes in the yogurt aisle because that Greek stuff is no good and searching the bread racks for the smallest hamburger buns we can find.

I wondered if my interaction with Grandma sparked a memory for the woman in the cleaning-products aisle. Maybe she used to take a parent or grandparent to the grocery store. Maybe she longed for a lost loved one.

My siblings and I have recently taken on larger caregiver roles for our grandmother, partly because our mom suffered a back injury last year and has been out of commission.

I take Grandma to doctor appointments, to the store and to visit her other daughter, who lives in a nursing home. I keep track of her blood pressure medications through an app on my iPhone. My husband and I rush to her North Raleigh apartment when she hits a wrong button on the remote control and can only get Channel 3 on TV. I buy ant traps for her kitchen, because she can’t sleep at night knowing the little critters are lurking.

It’s exhausting.

But it’s also enlightening, uplifting and fun.

Over the past few months, I’ve gotten to know my grandma in a new way. She talks to me about the biggest disappointments in her life and the wild times she had in her younger years. She has an unbelievable knack for self-pity, sure, but Grandma is also silly, kind and willing to talk to anyone who will listen.

She told me she wanted to try new restaurants, so we went to Bosphorus, a Greek eatery in Cary where she ordered a Philly cheesesteak. We went to Bar Louie in Brier Creek, where she raved about the tater tots. For breakfast we tried Courtney’s, where she was satisfied but proclaimed the cheese omelet from the senior menu was way too big.

Growing up, I wasn’t Grandma’s favorite. She’s Italian – born in Montana to parents from “It-ly,” as she calls it – and everyone led me to believe it was culturally acceptable for her to prefer her firstborn grandchild. As the youngest of four, I didn’t have a chance.

So I always approached her from a distance, unsure what to expect.

We grew closer during my 20s, partly because Grandma was thrilled that I shared her appreciation for adult beverages. I introduced her to the joys of margaritas.

We still can’t go to Chili’s without her asking, “Aren’t you going to order one of those drinks?”

Feeling conflicted

Before anyone yells at me for giving my grandmother a toilet-cleaning device, let me say that she’s a very independent, and feisty, lady.

She lives alone and keeps an immaculate home. My family regularly offers to clean the house, and she regularly says no.

But she has slowed down so much. On her birthday in April, she complained that she didn’t feel well. Two days later, she passed out in the kitchen.

She was admitted to the hospital twice during a two-week span and was diagnosed with an ulcer. Follow-up visits revealed precancerous cells in her esophagus, but she received an overall clean bill of health.

“I’d really like to drink whiskey again,” Grandma told a young physician assistant during one visit.

The doctor came in a few minutes later and said, “I don’t want to tell a 91-year-old how to live her life.”

Grandma promptly instructed me to go buy “a bottle,” as she calls it. I knew then her health was getting back on track.

Who am I to tell her not to do what she wants? If washing windows, changing bedsheets and drinking whiskey makes her happy, then so be it.

But I’m also conflicted. Isn’t it my responsibility to keep her safe? Or is it my job to make sure she’s happy?

My answers to those questions vary day by day. I find myself shutting down sometimes when she wants to talk endlessly about my hair, or my weight, or when I’m going to have a baby.

As terrible as it sounds, I sometimes even dread my time with her. But more and more, I think that’s because I see so much of Grandma in myself – her constant struggle to be happy, her inability to be satisfied.

But then there are moments when I see Grandma as other people must see her – as a spunky, adorable little Italian lady looking for bleach gel at Walmart.

There will be a day when I miss these shopping trips.