Erin Kelly, a writer with cerebral palsy, reflects on the impressions her grandparents left in her heart.
I was sitting in the parking lot of Red Lobster on a bitter but bright day in 2012. The crisp February air engulfed my lungs as I slowly navigated my wheelchair to the entrance with my grandmother Nana in tow.
“What are you hungry for, Penelope?” she asked me as my mom held the door open. Penelope was one of the many nicknames she’d given me over the years. It wasn’t my favorite, but I just rolled with it.
“I don’t know, Nan. “You know me. I’ll eat anything that doesn’t eat me first.”
We’d been here before, but this was her request for lunch. The afternoon sun caught the edge of my grandfather’s thumbprint charm, hanging from a necklace I’ve worn since I was 17. I carefully tucked it inside my shirt as I motored over the threshold.
A woman in a white shirt and black dress pants seated us almost immediately. I glanced up to see if she was bothered by my chair, or the fact I had oriental eyes and coal black hair. Neither seemed to rattle her as she politely led us down a long, dimly-lit corridor.
“It became less an exchange of medical terms and more a platform for Nana to showcase my accolades and accomplishments.”
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It vaguely reminded me of another restaurant my grandfather stormed out of upon hearing a less-than-friendly waiter scream, “We don’t have room for you!” at the mere sight of my chair when I was younger.
I could see the look on my grandfather’s face and hear his calm, diplomatic tone as he replied, “We won’t be coming back again.”
I stayed stuck in that moment for a second until I realized that I still had my chair on the lowest speed so my Nana could hold onto the handles.
The dim lights brought me back to reality. We no sooner got settled at our table before another woman came to take our order.
“Well, I’m having heart surgery tomorrow, so I might as well live it up,” Nana told our waiter, whom she engaged in a conversation about the way the heart works. After ten or so minutes, it became less an exchange of medical terms and more a platform for Nana to showcase my accolades and accomplishments, as well those of her other five grandchildren.
She didn’t tell the woman I was adopted from Korea, or go into the specifics of my cerebral palsy. She instead delivered her famous, “My oldest granddaughter is the best writer in the world!” line in true Jackie Frank fashion with a touch of her fiery Bingo-playing spirit, before adding, “I lost my husband, Wally, to a heart attack nine years ago… ”
With a wave and a hopeful smile, our waiter hugged her and wished her well before double-checking our orders and disappearing behind the flimsy swinging doors of the kitchen. Mom excused herself to use the restroom and then it was just me, Nana, and a symphony of silverware scraping against plates.
That’s when she said, “Save your tears, Penelope. I’m going to be fine.”
I went to bed that night replaying those words in my head and clutching my necklace in my hand—and woke the next morning doing the same. It was around 10:00 when I received a text from mom, saying the surgery was success, but she wanted to wait a few days before taking me to the hospital.
She didn’t say why and admittedly I didn’t really care why. I just wanted to see Nana.
I was both nervous and excited to see the result of her surgeon’s work. When I drove up to the glass doors of her hospital room the weekend after her surgery, however, I needed more strength than my body or mind had to take in what I saw.
She was sitting in a chair, and facing the TV with a cold blank stare. She was stiff yet still, with wires hanging from every visible part of her body. Her eyes turned to glass and her suddenly pale, mannequin-like hands didn’t even attempt to touch the tray of food in front of her.
My entire body went numb, but I instinctively drove further into the room with my mom footsteps behind.
“Hey Nana, how are you feeling?”
Silence.
I asked her again, thinking she didn’t hear me. She looked in my direction with her empty eyes and asked:
“Who are you?”
“Nana, it’s me, Erin…”
My mouth wanted to say, “What the hell did they do to you?” but my heart refused to give in to the fact that this wasn’t the Bingo-playing, free-spirited woman who’d been telling a complete stranger stories about her grandchildren less than a week earlier.
“Every time the sun shines on my necklace I smile because I know they’re together again, and telling everyone, ‘Our granddaughter is the best writer in the world!’
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I drove out of the room at that point, broken and shaken.
One day. One day was all it took for me and my family’s lives to be shattered. It took doctors and medical staff from three hospitals three months to figure out that m grandmother was slipping away due to immediate post-surgery complications.
You hear the expression, “Live each day as if it were your last” every now and again, but it never truly seems black-and-white until you lose those who mean the most. On April 30, 2012, I added another charm to my necklace—a tiny diamond from the sweater Nana was wearing in her casket.
I’ll never know why she told me she’d “be fine” that day sitting in her favorite restaurant, but she and my grandfather are still teaching me respect and love. Every time the sun shines on my necklace I smile because I know they’re together again, and telling everyone, “Our granddaughter is the best writer in the world!”
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–Photo: Jong Soo(Peter) Lee/Flickr
Wow! I never knew this about you. That was a deep and personal story. Very touching. I wish every person had the mindset of your grandparents. They both treated you as a person, rather than a person with a disability. They so easily looked past the outer shell and saw who you truly are. Granted they were your relatives, but I think this story will open other people’s eyes so they can see more clearly. I know it was back in 2012 that you last your grandmother, but I am sorry for your loss. I like that you keep a… Read more »