about my granny.

she has been without them nearly all day.  i gave her dentures to her at lunch time this afternoon so that she could eat the tuna sandwich and handful of cheez-its she had (which she turned her nose up at, of course, but ate anyway).  after lunch, she retired to her room, and when i saw her again at around 5, she was toothless again.  four and a half hours later she emerges again for something cold to drink, mouth still sunken and shapeless without her dentures.

yesterday morning, she smiled at me when i poked my head in her room to wake her up.  i saw teeth.  a few minutes after i gave her a plate of whatever was for lunch yesterday, she poked her head into my mother’s room, where i was watching TV.

“i cain’t find my teeth nowhere.” 

again, i saw teeth, then realized the mistake i’d made that morning.  i’d taken the visual proof of upper dentures as proof enough that the bottoms were in too.  they weren’t.  i went into her room and first looked under her pillows, which, for some reason, has become her favorite place to keep things—nightgowns, her remote control, the newspaper, and on occasion, her teeth.  this time, i found each of those items plus a small stack of neatly folded kleenex, but no dentures.  i moved on to the length of her bed, pulling sheets and blankets from it and shaking them out.  no dentures.

the last time i couldn’t find her dentures in her bed, i ended up having to rummage elbow-deep in kitchen trash that had been in the garbage can for a good day or two, absolutely filling the house with flies and eau de rotten chicken.  before i went about kicking things on my way to get the protective gloves this time, i remembered that i once found them inside her pillow case.  thankfully i found them there.

but i digress.

all this is bad news because there was a time when she wouldn’t be caught dead without her teeth in her mouth.  my grandmother has never been a vain woman, never considered herself particularly pretty (though i and most people disagree), but she was dressed.  i mean, *dressed.*  she kept herself cleaned up quite well, especially on sundays.  and she was never, ever without her teeth.  she even slept in them at night.

but she’s been without them for a day and a half.  purposely. 

this feels like another loss.   another piece of who she was is slipping away from us, if not gone already.  and not three minutes ago from this very moment, she called me into her room to cover her up because she was cold.  rather than reach down and pull up her own covers, rather than get up and put on an extra pair of socks, she got up and sought out her granddaughter to tuck her in.

i rolled my eyes and shook my head at her because it is easier than looking at her laying there, than watching another darkening shade settle on the horizon.

tsk.  so lazy.  she won’t even cover herself up anymore.

 won’t.  not can’t.  won’t. 

“won’t” is a fantasy.  “won’t” implies that if she’d just make the conscious decision to cover herself up, to stop undressing in the dining room, to get over the freaking coffee thing already, she would.  it suggests that where we are is not permanent, that we can somehow stop and even reverse time.

but “can’t” is our reality.  any active will that she has to do any of those things lessens a little more everyday, and i notice that these days we roll out eyes a little harder and comment on this delicious laziness a little louder as if trying to will it into existence. 

i tucked her in, though i did not want to.  rather instinctively, i began to lean down to kiss her on her forehead, but stopped short, uncomfortable with the motherliness of it all. 

i instead called out to her, “good night, i love you” as i stepped out of her room and further toward the land of can’t that i have been so fiercely avoiding.