Section (C)
GenerationsMy mother called last week to tell me that my grandmother is dying. She has refused an operationthat would delay, but not prevent, her death from cancer. She can't eat, she has been bleeding, and herskin is a deep yellow color. "I always prided myself on being different," she told my mother. "Now I amdifferent. I'm yellow."My grandmother was born in Russia to a large and prosperous Jewish (犹太人的) family. But theprosperity didn't last. She tells stories of attacks by other Russians when she was twelve. Soon afterthat, her family moved to Canada, where she met my grandfather.
Their children were the center of their life. Though they never had much money, my grandmothersaw to it that her daughter had speaking lessons and piano lessons, and assured her that she would goto college.
But while she was at college, my mother met my father, who was blue-eyed and yellow-haired andnot Jewish. When my father sent love letters to my mother, my grandmother would open and thenhide them.
After my grandfather died, my grandmother lived, more than ever, through her children. When shecame to visit, I would hide my diary. She couldn't understand that some things were private. Shecouldn't bear it if my mother left the house without her.
This desire to possess and control others made my mother very angry (and then guilty that she feltthat way, when of course she owed so much to her mother). So I felt the anger that my mother — thegood daughter — would not allow herself. I — who had always performed especially well for mygrandmother, danced and sung for her, presented her with kisses and good report cards — stoppedwriting to her, ceased to visit.
But when I heard that she was dying, I realized I wanted to go to see her one more time. Mostly tomake my mother happy, I told myself (certain patterns being hard to break). But also, I waspresenting to her one more particularly fine achievement: my own dark-eyed, dark-skinned, dark-haired daughter, whom my grandmother had never met.
I put on my daughter's best dress for our visit, the way the best dresses were always put on me, andI filled my pockets with small cookies, in case my daughter started to cry. I washed her face withoutmercy. Going up to Grandma's hospital room, I realized how much I was sweating.
Grandma was lying flat with her eyes shut, but she opened them when I leaned over to kiss her. "It'sDorothy's daughter, Kathleen," I shouted, because she doesn't hear well anymore, but I could see thatno explanation was necessary. "You came," she said. "You brought the baby."Laurie is just one year old, but she has seen enough of the world to know that people in beds are notmeant to be so still and yellow, and she looked frightened. I had never wanted, more, for her to smile.
Then Grandma waved at her — the same kind of slow wave a baby makes — and Laurie waved back.
I spread her toys out on my grandmother's bed and sat her down. There she stayed, most of theafternoon, playing and singing and drinking from her bottle, sleeping at one point, leaning against mygrandmother's leg. When I played some music, Laurie stood up on the bed and danced. Grandmawouldn't talk much anymore, though every once in a while she would say how sorry she was that shewasn't having a better day. "I'm not always like this," she said. Mostly she just watched Laurie.
We were flying back to the US that night and I had hated telling her, remembering how she hadalways cried when I left. But in the end, I was the one who cried. She had said she was ready to die. Butas I leaned over to stroke her forehead, what she said was, "I wish I had your hair" and "I wish I waswell."On the plane flying home, with Laurie in my arms, I thought about mothers and daughters, and thefour generations of the family that I know most intimately. Every one of those mothers loves and needsher daughter more than her daughter will ever love or need her mother. We mothers are, each of us,the only person on earth who has quite such an all-consuming interest in our child.
Sometimes I kiss and hold Laurie so much she starts crying — which is, in effect, what mygrandmother was doing to my mother, all her life. And what makes my mother sad right now, I think, isnot simply that her mother will die in a day or two, but that, once her mother dies, there will neveragain be someone to love her in quite such a complete, unrestrained way. She will only be a mother,then, not a daughter anymore.
Laurie and I have stopped over for a night to be with my mother. Tomorrow my mother will fly backto be with my grandmother. But tonight she is feeding me, as she always does when I come, and I ameating more than I do anywhere else. I admire the wedding dishes (once my grandmother's) that mymother has set on the table. She says (the way Grandma used to say to her), "Some day they will beyours." |