Neebish 2017: Swerving From The Path

I tip-toe down the rickety stairs of this 117-year-old boat house, hoping to snatch a moment alone on the screened-in-porch, before the kids start clamoring to make pirate ships and the grandmas start debating the merits of scrambling eggs in an iron vs. a non-stick frying pan.  I open the accordion door on the last step that separates the second floor from the common space downstairs and think I am in the clear.  The kids didn’t wake as I escaped our quarters.  But 90-year-old Doris Behling, my grandmother and former door-to-door sales woman of World Book Encyclopedia was wide awake.  With her door open, eyes popped wide, I walk quietly into her room and sit on the foot of her bed.  Noticing how this woman is frail and yet healthy. We always considered her a health food nut for carrying nuts in her purse when my parents snack of choice came through the Mc Donalds Drive Thru.

“You are up early,” she offered.  I swerved from my path and sat down at the foot of her twin bed to spend a few moments talking with my grandma before the day began.  Her room rests over the water, and through her window you can take in an old boathouse, early morning fisherman, and the changing light on the shoreline.  We both note the call of the herons and she begins to tell me how she sees the world. 

“My daughters won’t let me drive my car.  They tell me I can’t park the car on their property but they have three acres.  They gave my car to one of my daughters. She is a sweetheart.  She picks me up each Sunday and takes me to church.  But no one will let me drive it.” My grandma lives with in Harbor Springs with two of her three daughters in the Fall, Winter, and Spring, and with my mother on Neebish Island for the summers. “The keys are around here somewhere.  It is my car!” she continues passionately.  “I bought it with money I earned.” Last night when I came down to use the bathroom at 1AM, she was wide awake.  I peeked in to turn off her light and she had asked, ”Where is my car?”  I take in her concern, while letting my mind rest on her hairline, her skin, her eyes without glasses.

Listening to her, I note the 14 pairs of very comfortable Velcro sandals and Velcro tennis shoes lining the wall.  A high shelf holds 40 or more washcloths, likely my mom’s doing.  A book shelf with her Bible, a novel called, Who murdered Jesus, and a stack of old Newsmax magazines.  Out the window the sunlight kisses each evergreen needle.  With little wind ruffling the surface of the river, the water laps quietly against the shore below her window. 

I tell her that we all have stories we like to tell over and over again. We all really are broken records.  I share with her that I have been in a daily writing group with eight girlfriends for five years.  I share with her that we just tell the same stories, with the same characters over and overagain deepening our personal narratives about  Me the accomplisher, me the martyr, me the victim, me the sacrificer.  The my life is so hard narrative is a common one.  I am glad for these priceless early morning and late night conversations.  As my mom says, she comes each summer so that her mother is not alone.  I am happy to do my part.

I try to change the subject, “Do you still read your Bible everyday?” Remembering the early mornings we spent watching televangelist Benny Hinn together. “No, I am not that zealous!  I know the Bible pretty well.” She offers and tells me the story of her daughters again.  She repeats each detail--their decisions about her car, and the details of which daughter uses it and where she can and cannot park it.  She tells me the exact same story, with the exact same emotion and exact same details 10-15 times.  The first few times I try to listen as though I have never heard the story. The next few times I realize how similar it is to my own mind, telling the same stories over and over again to anyone who will listen.  For Grandma the story on repeat is about her car.  My repeating story is about navigating Santi’s questions about who his father is and if he has a second mom. She starts the story again and I dare to offer a seemingly obvious point, “Maybe they are afraid you won’t remember where you live when you drive it and you could get lost?”  “I am not senile,” she responds.  I see her humanity, her grasping for more independence.  “I have a drivers licence.” I wonder how dangerous it would be to let her drive here on the island where there are no other cars and straight roads.  What if I took her out for a drive?  “My memory isn’t so bad.  Sure, I tell a story three or four times,” she says both exasperated and unaware of how bad her memory is.  Yesterday, our first full day on the island, she asked the ages of my kids 40-50 times.  I am waiting for Santi and Zadie to wonder why she asks so often. 

  Do you know what I remember?  When you used to wake me up at your house in Saginaw to watch Benny Hinn.

I wonder about how I will feel when I am 90-years-old.  Will I sleep alone in a twin bed on Neebish island?  Will I sleep alone in this very bed, as Grandma Maggie Lovejoy did before and Grandma Doris Behling does now, and I imagine Grandma Karin Meyer will one day?  If I could be so lucky.  I try to imagine if my kids will come visit me with their children?  Will I know my grandchildren? I can’t help but think about how I could know my children’s, children’s, children, my great grand kids, if I had had my babies at 21-years-old like all three generations before me.