a life well lived: reflecting on another lifetime

Photo of Rachel and Grampa in front of the Trailer, with poppies shown in the corner of the flowerbed (photo on the left). Photo of Rachel and Grandma in front of tulips in the garden (on the right). This photo didn’t print correct, and cousin, Bob, is in front of a slide on the other side.

“Roger, beloved patriarch of his family, entered into eternal rest on Monday, September 25, 2017. Roger was born in Saint Donatus Iowa on February 17, 1932 to John and Eleanor, the youngest of four children. He grew up in Dubuque, Iowa and entered the military service in 1952, serving in the Korean War. Upon discharge he married the love of his life, Joan, and together they raised five children. After working in the meatpacking industry for more than 35 years, Roger and Joan retired to live in California. He was a beloved father to his four surviving children, grandfather to nine grandchildren, and one great grandchild. Roger loved life and lived it to the fullest. His smile was endless, laughter infectious and all who were blessed to have him in their life will sorely miss him.”

I remember picking California poppies in the evening twilight every summer, in the front yard of your double-wide trailer. They grew like weeds through the cracks of the weather worn boards used as a walkway in your makeshift garden. You took pride in your garden, trimming the hedges into rounded circles, refilling the bird bath with clean water daily, collecting shiny pinwheels from the local drugstore. The pinwheels would whine spinning in the wind as the tiny metal pieces rusted over time. Glimmering in the sun I was always drawn to the pinwheels, noticing them around the neatly trimmed hedges. But as a kid, I noticed you never trimmed away the poppies because you knew I loved to pick them with you.

I remember driving to Yosemite National Park with our family when I was around 10 years old. Our family was piled into one SUV, so we didn’t have to pay multiple park entrance fees leaving us sitting three across. You leaned over to me and said quietly “I am going to take a sapling home.” I giggled in delight knowing this was for your small garden and would likely not survive the Central Valley heat but knew you would do it because you were always determined once you stated it out loud. As the day wore on you told other family members of your intentions to take home a sapling, until it came time to actually do it, suddenly Grandma chimed in, “Roger, you’re not getting a tree, now quiet!” The car became silent but erupted in laughter as my younger brother re-enacted grandma’s words throughout the rest of the journey home.

Over the years you took diligent care of your garden, until one day in my adulthood you moved out of your home, shortly after you fell and just months after your heart meds made you go mad at night. Your nightmares would come to life, and you would envision demons chasing you or grandma having a love affair and running off with him to start a new life. It took us so long and many doctors to realize the medications were causing the delusions, but we didn't realize it for a long time. And in the meantime, you needed to be in a safe place—a home with grandma but couldn't afford both your trailer and the retirement community, as your savings dwindled. I made a deal with grandma and secretly moved into your trailer, paying her rent.

It was a 55 and over community, and your home had been abandoned for the better part of the year. Your garden is overgrown without your caring eye. Weeds poked through the worn boards. Crabgrass and thistles inching their ways through the rocks and onto the carpeted back patio. I was fresh out of college, had very little money, and few job prospects. Unable to tend your garden to the proper care it deserved, I let it continue to run wild. Eventually weeds grew nearly as tall as me. When we finally took you off the meds that caused your delusions and your mind settled, we also spent time and money tending your garden. You saw it as a source of pride once again. The trailer was sold not long after, and I moved into an apartment in town closer to you.

We spent your last few years together attending weekly church services on Sundays, dinner at the local diner afterwards, taking trips to nearby towns for tasting wine or shopping, decorating the apartment for holidays. Sometimes I would get a cheerful voicemail from you. You would just check in on me or see how my new kitten, was doing. I knew you couldn’t have a garden at your new apartment, but I bought you an amaryllis bulb to grow on the porch. It grew until the small terra cotta pot could no longer hold its soil, spilling into a mess on the floor, Grandma would always ask you to sweep up after it.

I didn’t know my time with you was limited. If I did, I would’ve asked you questions, I would’ve asked you how to be myself without you in my daily life. I would’ve finished the family scrapbook together which we started chronicling of your relatives long passed. Now it sits half-finished collecting dust in a hallway closet behind coats and unused holiday gift wrap.

You died on a Monday.

I was too sick to visit you the weekend before you passed. When I last saw you, you were going in and out of consciousness, fighting with the breathing tube that kept you alive. I remember the humming sound of the oxygen tank as it pushed air in and out of your lungs. Woosh, woosh. The wires and tubes hung off your shrinking body. This was the fifth hospital, the nineteenth room, it had no windows, one chair, it was in the basement. You never knew this last room because of the state you were in.

You passed without us there.

I take shiny pinwheels to your grave every year because they remind me of your garden. They blow in the wind the same way they did back home and remind me of how much your garden meant to you. They remind me of the poppies and how you saved them for me.

References:

1. Lesy, Michael, and Van Schaick, Charles. Wisconsin Death Trip. [1st ed.] New York: Pantheon Books, 1973.

---

*Author's note: this post was adapted from a longer piece written in an Affect Theory course taught by Dr. Susan Lepselter at Indiana University, Bloomington. It is dedicated to my Grampa. I miss you ♥︎

#care #aging #caregiving #affecttheory #affect #anthropology #gerontology #medicalanthropology