Last Saturday, it snowed a lot. I was trapped in my house because I didn't want to go out in the snow, so I flicked around the television a little. I came across some channels I didn't even know I had, and on one of these channels "227" was playing. "227" is a sitcom about a group of people who happen to be black (nothing to do with the plot, just makes the banter flow) who live in an apartment building in Washington, D.C. It aired in the late 80s-early 90s, and it was one of my favorite shows growing up. I loved Jackee, how she would waddle around flirting. She was the ideal. I used to watch this program every Saturday I would sleep over Grandma's. It was such a magical time then. I loved staying over Granmda's on Saturdays. All the great shows were on the NBC lineup: After "227" came "Golden Girls" then "Empty Nest" followed by "Nurses" (I wasn't crazy about "Nurses") and then "Sisters." During the News, I would adjust the makeup I had put on in Grandma's room during the commercial breaks, and then settle in on the couch for "Saturday Night Live." It may seem like I was just watching tv the whole time, which I was, in addition to eating copious amounts of sweets, and dressing up like a prostitute, but it was fun, and I pretended I was part of the shows. Grandma would play games with me, play acting or checkers. She would wait on me, cook for me. It was great. I loved going to Grandma's house. It was a little red Cape Cod, like many others, but there was something so magical about it, something in the atmosphere there that just felt great. Maybe it did have something to do with all the old movies and fun tv that I watched there, but a lot of it has to do with Grandma. It's a far cry from the way I usually feel about visiting Grandma now. Sometimes it is a fine visit, cut and dry, good visit. Other times, it involves a laundry list of things to do while I am there. I don't mind helping Grandma, I sometimes like it, but other times it just kind of catches me off guard. Like a few weeks ago, I went to visit Grandma after my class. I thought I would just stay for a little bit, watch "The Price is Right" with her, and go to my internship. "What are you doing now?" She asked me when I start to leave.
"Oh nothing," I answer, "I have to go to my internship, but I have to stop at Stop and Shop first."
"Oh what do I need at Stop and Shop?" she asks.
"I don't know," I say through my clenched teeth. I know this will not be a clean visit. A return will be necessary.
"I need tea," she says. "And bread. But you don't have to bring it back now, you can bring it back whenever." This makes me almost angrier, the notion of driving around with Grandma's tea and bread in my backseat hanging over my head that I need to bring them to her.
"No, no, no," I say aggravated, "I'll just do it now. I'll just go to the store up the street."
"And a jelly donut." Grandma adds. I lose it. The store with the Dunkin Donuts in it is on the other side of town, the one up the street doesn't have a Dunkin Donuts, where am I going to get a jelly donut there?"
"What?! Why do you need a jelly donut right now?"
"Forget the jelly donut," she says, "I really don't need it. I don't want to be an inconvenience."
In my rage over the grocery requests, I seem to forget that most grocery stores do have bakeries where you can get jelly donuts, even if they don't have Dunkin Donuts. I remember this in the car on the way over to the store, and feel bad at how annoyed I get with Grandma. When I would sleep over her house when I was little she would take me to the A&P and let me get whatever I wanted. I'm giving her grief over a jelly donut--there goes the guilt again. I always visit Grandma with the sunniest intentions of being a good granddaughter, like Little Red Riding Hood, but often times leave feeling like the Big Bad Wolf.
I know Grandma misses her old house too. She won't let me drive her by it, even though it is only a few miles from where she lives now. She lived there for almost 60 years, she raised her family there, her grandkids played and grew up in that house. I have lived in my house for a litte over a year and I miss it when we go away for the weekend, I can't imagine how Grandma must feel. I know that it is better for her to be in her apartment building right now, where there are people right across the hall at all times, but sometimes what is better doesn't always feel better. I feel sad thinking about the last time I was in Grandma's house. All the furniture was out, and my parents and I were just doing a final cleaning. At that moment, I didn't feel sad about Grandma selling it and not living there anymore, I felt relief that the whole moving process was over, because it was such a pain. Living in a house for sixty years, one accumulates a lot, and you don't really know what is and isn't an antique, and if you kept everything that had sentimental value, you'd have a couple of moving trucks filled with knick knacks. After a while, I just became desensitized to it. Champagne glasses that I had filled with Schweppes Raspeberry Giner Ale while watching "Golden Girls" were tossed into the Goodwill boxes because they were from the Church tag sale, and weren't valuable enough to move. A part of me and Grandma will always be in her old house, watching tv on Saturday nights, having tacos after my dance class on Wednesdays, eating Sunday dinner with our family, visiting on Christmas Eve. I find change very hard. Does part of me still want to stay at Grandma's on Saturday nights, eating candy and watching "227"? Yes. Would that be weird? Also a yes. Sometimes change is necessary I guess, to put us in roles that are more age appropriate. It is hard when the roles are reversed from what you once knew them to be, like taking care of a parent or grandparent, but like Frank Sinatra says, "That's Life."
JoJo
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