Neebish Day 3--Response to Jenn's Questions

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A friend asked me the following questions:

"Amy. What? I can't believe you were scared to go down the hill. Very interesting. "No milk comes out of my booby doobies" very funny. Oh man, your poor grandmother. How awful and scary. So did you leave yesterday? How is your grandmother? How are you? Where are you?"

The main family cabin on Neebish island, filled with spiders, fishing poles, and rocking chairs, is on the water five doors down.  My mom had me rent a cabin, full of knick knacks from the Unins.  The Unins don't like children, have white carpet in this tiny two room cottage and have asked that I don't move any knick knacks while staying here, like the bowl of pine cones, or the ceramic bass that stands up straight with an open mouth out of which comes dried flowers.  They might be fake flowers--I dare not touch them.  

My grandmother is grumpy, annoyed, and 86-years-old.  She is in a hospital.  Whenever my mom or her sisters go in, they wear booties, hair caps, gloves, masks and full gowns.  Of course grandma is very concerned that she got one of her five great grand kids sick as Brent's kids (Phoenix and Atlas) were here before I got here with Santi.  Kari's kids (Sienna and Mack) overlapped with both trips.  Julie didn't come this year.  She said she didn't want to get ticks.

It is true this is only one step up from camping.  In this knick-knack mallard-duck filled rental cabin, I can't figure out how to close the windows, consequently all kinds of things crawl in.  There are screens, but the bugs on Neebish island outsmarted screens a century ago.  If I get a decent connection I will post a few pictures today.  You will see what I mean.  

I am staring out the window at the St. Mary's River, between me and the water at the knick knack cabin are a few white birch trees.  The skin peels back on their trunks.  I consider writing a letter to Santi on the bark for his time capsule. Their tall white spines offer a contrast to the Michigan green that fills every other direction of my view.  Think white pine trees, aspens, and cedars fill my viewfinder.  I will ask Mr. Koeger what the names of these trees are.  I still hold on to my friend Monica's challenge that Santi try to know more names for birds, trees, and flowers than brand names by the time he is three.  So far we are losing (Mac, Sesame street, Carters).

I was totally afraid to drive down the hill.  I will take a picture of that too.  

In addition to spending summer vacations on Neebish Island, my family also grew up sailing.  We had a 34-foot sloop that we kept in Chicago and would sail on the weekends named the Savage.  My dad bought it on Kari's birthday, July 26th, 1978.  When I was in middle school we would rent a sailboat each winter and sail from island to island in the Caribbean.  My father, an Enneagram eight, was the captain.  I am not totally convinced of his skills, but we never had an accident.  He also learned to fly airplanes and got his private pilot's license when I was in high school.  He would fly solo, but with the family, he always had a co pilot who was a professional.    I was also very very afraid of how the boat would heel I would sit with my mom in the cock pit of the sail boat while Julie and Brent would sit on the side of the boat leaning into the water and dangle their feet in the crystal blue wáter as we zig-zagged Lake Michigan.  Sometimes I would sit on the dock and cry, wishing we didn't have to go.  Yes, I was scared.  

Yesterday, one of my mother's two sisters (Linda) came to visit Santi and I.  I haven't seen her in five years.  My mom is very very close to her sisters.  They are all conservative republicans who love Fox news and the Lord.  We agreed to not talk politics.  The WSJs finally came and I read both cover to cover.  It is truely unbelievable to be totally unconnected and to love the arrival of the hard copy day old newspaper.  I am going to start writing my grandmother one postcard a day.  Mail is truly like god out here.  If I can write a blog post a day, I can easily write a post card a day.

My aunt Linda and I talked about her decision to adopt her two sons Justin and Larry.  We talked about how they were just given to her, she didn't use an agency.  We talked about how she and Uncle Steve had to file papers in both locations of abandonment to eventually be able to adopt them because the boys’ mothers wouldn't sign the papers.  We talked about how Justin has never had a desire to meet his birth mother or his birth brothers.  And how Larry changed his name to his mother's maiden name, even though he is not close to her.  For a decade he disliked his adoptive parents, but has recently reconnected with my Aunt and is back to calling Aunt Linda Mom.  I feel like I am gearing up for either of these options with Santi.  I have no idea how not having a known father will affect him.

The thing about Neebish is how deep our roots here.  All of us.  Me, my mom, her mom, her mom’s mom and every cousin, sibling, and spouse has a lifetime of memories here with good Ole Maggie and Bill.  I am borrowing the internet from the neighbors, the Geralds.  When I stopped by to get the password yesterday the Geralds explained to me that they were the ones that took Maggie Lovejoy to the hospital when she died in 1991.  No one can quite remember the year.

Extended family is precious. And despite the twists and turns of these first 2.5 weeks, the point is for Santi to know his extended family and for them to know him.  Last night in Wheaton, when Mack was saying his prayers with Kari, Mack asked to include Santi. 

We will wait here at the family boathouse for Grandma to come home.  We won't change the TV channel, she gets very upset if you do, she can't figure out how to get it back to Fox.  Last night, when my mom got home from the hospital, we sat in the orange rocking chairs and talked for an hour.  She ate 4 pieces of carrot cake and I made chocolate chip cookies.  Mom said, "Amy, I think when you come to Neebish, you like to make the foods of your childhood."  I wish I could make my mom's carrot cake.  Maybe I can learn.  

My mom explained how Grandma gets so upset if you don't sit and watch Fox with her.  Since she has dementia, she can't remember the stories and is happy to watch them over and over.  My mom and Aunts can't bear it.  They want to be productive, to dust, to take the laundry off the line, they love Fox, but can't stand to hear the stories over and over again.  My grandma gets very mad and yells, "SIT DOWN, RIGHT NOW!" In the cross-word puzzle voice.  My mom explains that she doesn't want to. "I SAID, SIT DOWN!"  Like my mom is five and my grandma is still in charge she doesn't back down.  My mom explains it feels like she is going to "blow a gasket." So she sits and watches reruns on Fox.

I suppose the main impression I am left with here is how deeply and sacrificially my aunts and mom are caring for their mother.  I, of course, am telling them they should hire someone to help out with the nights, or a few hours in the day.  None of them are young and they are all tired.  How did my grandma raise such sacrificing and caring daughters—all of them.  Or in my mom's case a one with a very strong enneagram two wing.  She also has two brothers, probably a nine and a four, who haven’t yet helped out in this way.  Sons don't sacrifice in the same way or so it seems in these final years (although my brother may prove to be the exception in this case for our mother).  My grandma was eating almonds and dried fruit decades ago and will likely live another decade.  With her boyfriend Keith gone, no one has been filing the bird feeders.  Yesterday the hummingbirds literally flew in the cabin looking for food.  That will be my job for the day--feed the hummingbirds.

From Neebish Island,

Amy Lovejoy