Chapter Eleven: Forgivness and a Promise Kept

Towards the end of my two year stint with living out of my car I got a chance to reconcile with my grandmother. Her health was deteriorating, so I decided to make good on a promise that I had made to my grandfather while he was on his death bed.



My grandfather was a WWII vet. He fought in the South Pacific and ended up in Nagasaki six days after the dropping of the atomic bomb. He wasn't my real grandfather in the genetic sense, but he loved me like his own nonetheless. I loved my grandpa. He taught me how to shake hands like a man when I was a kid, and I always had a great deal of respect for him. It was tough to see his body slowly break down from ailments his Doctors thought might have been associated with the radiation he was exposed to in Nagasaki. Towards the end of his life he was taken to the VA Hospital in Long Beach; a shadow of his former self, broken down and weak. I went to see him one last time. He was stripped down to his underwear. His hands were bound to the sides of his bed to keep him from pulling the I.V. tubes out of his arms and the intubation tube stuck down his throat. I saw him there looking helpless and could see in his eyes that he wanted to die. I leaned over and thanked him for being my grandpa. I told him I loved him and kissed him on the forehead. I promised that I'd take care of grandma, then said goodbye. He died two days later.



I didn't want to see my grandmother committed to a rest home because of a lack of care, so I started to show up at her house everyday to check in on her. The place was a wreck; trash bags and clutter everywhere, dirty towels in the wash room, putrid rotting food on the kitchen counters, rotten food dripping with brown gunk in the refrigerator. This was all unacceptable, so I cleaned and sanitized the house top to bottom. I also learned how to prepare the protein shakes with which she was sustaining herself, since that was the only thing she could keep down. I was basically the only family member that showed any interest in doing what was necessary in keeping her out of a rest home. Her daughter, who was a trained nurse, had three kids of her own to take care of. She'd stop by every few days to check in and make sure that her mom was taking her meds. Her husband was a vice president of a bank. They had enough money to provide a day care provider for her, but why waste the money when I was willing to do it for free? My dad didn't ever stop by to visit his mom, he was just waiting for the hefty inheritance that he'd never receive. But I was there everyday, on work days as well as my days off.



My grandmother had always been a two-faced person. She seemed a friendly enough person to enjoy her company, but then she would say things behind peoples backs to turn people against one another. The whole family knew of this horrible trait, which was probably why her son and daughter never came by to spend any quality time with her at the end of her life. But I had made my peace with her. While I was taking care of her we became close, not the dysfunctional kind of close that I had known in my childhood, but a closeness minus all the bull crap. She wanted me to move back in with her, but I declined. I'd continue to live out of my car and take care of her the best I could. A strange thing happened about six weeks before she died. That two-faced side of her personality, that other side of her character that pitted people against each other, disappeared entirely. It was almost like a miracle. I called family members to come witness the transformation for themselves, but no one ever came by.

Next up: One Road Ends, Another Continues.