December 10^th, 2004

 

Is there such a thing a love?  Is there such a thing as the soul?  These are the two questions I’m gonna address tonight, and since I’m not fucking around, I wanna warn you right now that this story is NOT going to be funny. 

 

I’ve got my “Last of the Mohicans” soundtrack playing in the background, my blue “Gracie Jujitsu” pullover on, and a massive glass of vodka and orange juice nearby.  Why vodka and orange juice?  (Instead of bourbon and diet coke?)  Because I’ve got a cold, and orange juice is good for the immune system. 

 

Now, I never get sick.  I just don’t.  And having a stuffed up nose and a sore throat is really depressing for me.  I know I’m not immortal, I know I don’t have a superhuman constitution, but I’ve been increasingly faced with my own human frailty as of late, and it’s pissing me off.

 

A few months ago, I snapped a tendon in my ankle while grappling, and I was laid up on the couch for weeks while my body slowly knitted itself back together.  This year, (my 31^st), has seen me in the poorest physical condition of my life, and I’m starting to get the feeling that time is catching up with me. 

 

As one might expect, the thought of old age and eventual death has wormed its way into my mind with increasing frequency, and that’s a hard thing to deal with for a guy like me.  After all, I have no religious beliefs, no faith, and while I’m pretty happy with my life so far, I’ve begun to ponder the meaning of it all.  Or, more directly, the lack thereof.

 

I didn’t mention this in any of my “Adventures in Greenville” stories, but I flew to Columbus Mississippi with my parents on Thanksgiving Day to visit my father’s mother and brother.  My father’s mother, Grandma Shirley, lives in a nursing home, while my father’s brother, Uncle Clint, works as a plant manager in Columbus.

 

Grandma Shirley is in her eighties, and she has Alzheimer’s- a degenerative disease of the brain which erodes both memory and cognitive function.  While on the phone with my parents before the trip, they warned me that Grandma no longer recognizes the people she spent her life loving and caring for, and this tore me up.  Sure, she still knows Clint, (because he comes to see her several times a week), but my dad (her son) is like a stranger to her.

 

I almost started crying on the phone when I heard this, partially because Grandma didn’t know Dad anymore, and partially because I figured that meant that she would no longer know me.  Granted, I hadn’t seen her in five years, but Grandma Shirley meant the world to me growing up, and I desperately refused to believe that the Alzheimer’s had totally erased my existence.

 

I was soon to learn that my “refusal” had little bearing on reality.

 

We woke early on Thanksgiving Day; Mom, Dad, and I quickly showering and getting dressed before heading out for the airport.  My father is a pilot, and he owns his own plane, so the three of us made the trip from Greenville to Columbus in a little under an hour.

 

Let me just say that my parents are not filthy rich, per say.  We were dirt poor growing up, but they did well for themselves once Eric and I were out of college, and it’s only recently that they’ve acquired the financial stability to live the lives I’d imagine they always wanted to. 

 

I’m happy for them.  I’m proud of them.  They’ve certainly paid their dues.

 

Anyway, we touched down at the Columbus airport around 10:00 AM, there to be met by my uncle Clint.  I hadn’t seen him in more than a decade, yet, he looked almost exactly as I remembered.  Sure, he’d started to go bald, but he had the same 70’s haircut he did when I was a child, and I LOVED the playful way he and Dad interacted as only brothers can, much the way Eric and I do.  

 

Clint didn’t recognize me AT ALL at first, but then his eyes widened when I shook his hand, and he gasped, “Well I’ll be…  Is this Michael Junior?”

 

Keep in mind, I’m much bigger than both Clint and Dad, and I’d imagine that- to Clint- I looked like a hulking mirror of the mischievous little prankster that used to play with his model cars.

 

After Mom used her Jedi mind powers to negotiate the use of the airport “loaner” van, we took off to the nursing home.  It was a nice place, an expensive place; everything clean and sterile and well kept.  Still, old people were everywhere, each drawn to us, (me especially), as if youth was a thing they could somehow regain by touch alone.

 

Unsettling it was, this person or that shuffling over to me with entreaties that didn’t make any sense.

 

“I’ve lost my rabbit,” one lady said, grabbing me by the wrist as I walked past her, “Can you help me?  I need you to help me.”

 

“I’m sorry, sweetie,” I replied, “I haven’t seen your rabbit.”

 

I had to pry myself from her grip, literally, and it broke my heart when she slumped back into her nearby chair and started mumbling, “The rabbit’s gone…  I can’t find it…  No one will help me…”

 

Nursing homes make me believe in Hell.

 

Regardless, we were given the location of my grandmother after a brief conversation with the nurse receptionist, and the four of us walked down a banking succession of hallways to find her sitting alone in a wheelchair.

 

“Grandma?” My mother chimed, kneeling down in front of her, “How you doing?”

 

I find this ironic, since I don’t remember my mom being all that close to Grandma Shirley before the Alzheimer’s.  Keep in mind, Shirley was the one I initially fled to when I was fifteen after Mom sikked the cops on me for running away, (see the “Jail” story).

 

Though Mom would say different, Grandma didn’t seem to recognize her, nor Dad.  In fact, Grandma only rallied when Clint came to take her hand and say his hellos. 

 

“Mama?” Clint cooed ever so softly, “Mama, we’re gonna take you out to eat some turkey for Thanksgiving.  You wanna eat some turkey, don’t cha?  You wanna go with us?”

 

“Yeah,” I heard a gravely voice reply, followed by a sputtering of incoherent laughter, “I’ll go eat turkey.”

 

I’d been standing behind her up until this point, genuinely afraid to see her face, to see her eyes. 

 

“Grandma?” Mom said, gently pulling me in front of the wheel chair, “Do you recognize this big ole guy?  Do you remember your grandson?  Michael Junior?”

 

For a moment, Shirley just sat there, her glazed eyes locked to my mother.  Slowly, painfully, eventually, she looked up at me, her face lax in blankness. 

 

“No,” she groaned, almost as if she was afraid of me.  And then her attention swung to Clint.  “It’s cold.  I wanna eat turkey.”

 

My whole world fell apart, and not just because my most beloved grandmother didn’t know who I was.  Hell, Clint hadn’t known who I was at first!  Yet, this was worse, chiefly because I didn’t recognize her either.  Far from the lithe, bright eyed woman I remembered, she was small and hunched and puffy, her face so bloated, she looked like she’d gotten her ass beat.

 

From the diabetes, no doubt, but I was horrified.  This was a dilapidated SHELL of the woman I’d known, her eyes no longer bright, her expression no longer knowing, her movements no longer quick and purposeful.  Dressed in a light blue sweatshirt and matching pants, she could’ve been a lost soul with no one to care, even though I knew this particular nursing home was top notch.  Still, there my grandmother sat, slightly leaned forward as if she could fall to the hard linoleum floor at any moment.

 

“I wanna eat turkey,” she said again, and we tried our best to grant her wish, then wheeling her out the nearby side door to wait while Clint brought the van around. 

 

So cold it was, outside.  I would’ve given Grandma my shirt if I’d been wearing something underneath it. 

 

She complained about the cold, and the situation only got worse when we tried to get her into the van.  Dad and Clint opened the giant side door and coaxed her in, but Grandma froze once she was draped over the interior seat, her fragile little feet still planted firmly on the ground while the rest of clung to the headrest.

 

Frightened by her inability to climb into the van, Grandma started crying; her weak, muffled sobs making me wish I could pour my strength into her.  How is life truly “life” when you no longer have the physical prowess to make the transition from wheelchair to automobile?

 

This went on for a good ten minutes, until Mom, Dad, and Clint simultaneously agreed that we could not get her into the van, much less take her out to a restaurant for Thanksgiving Dinner.

 

After procuring the services of an orderly, we got Grandma back in her wheelchair and left her, then driving to a local hotel for a buffet of turkey, dressing, and a host of other Thanksgiving items.

 

As I ate, I tried to talk to Clint; I tried to rekindle an uncle/nephew relationship that- in truth- might’ve never existed.  It wasn’t so much that I wanted to know my uncle again.  No, it was more that I wanted to know my family in general.

 

I was not successful.  We made small talk.  That’s it, and that’s all. 

 

Once we’d gorged ourselves on all manner of culinary delights, we returned to the nursing home with a doggy bag for Grandma.  Mom, (along with Dad and Clint), went back to the front desk to interrogate the receptionist on duty, thus demanding to know why Grandma’s face was so puffy, and why her most recent medical chart showed that she’d had a cardiogram.

 

As for me, I wondered the nursing home halls until I found the cafeteria, there to see my grandmother eating alone at a small round table in the center of the room.

 

I immediately made my way over and asked if I could sit down.

 

Grandma smiled, laughed, and then mumbled, “Sure.”

 

Her plastic tray was filled with turkey and dressing, along with a generous glass of ice tea.   

 

I sat there in silence watching her eat, my emotions finally overcoming the stoic continence I’d maintained all day.

 

“Do you know me, Grandma?” I asked, tears blurring my vision.

 

“Of course I know you!” she laughed matter-of-factly, “You’re Clint’s friend.”

 

“No, Grandma.  I’m not Clint’s friend.  I’m his nephew.  I’m Michael Junior.  I’m your older boy’s son.”

 

She merely laughed again, and though I knew I was being selfish and cruel, I reached over and gently squeezed her hand.

 

“Look at me...  Know me...  I’m little Mike!  Don’t you remember, Grandma?  You used to make me donuts for breakfast.  You used to hold me on you hip over the washer so I could watch the clothes spin.  You used to fix me coke with no ice because I liked to drink it hot…  It’s ME!  I’m here, and I’m the same…  I’m just older.”

 

For the briefest of moments, Grandma stared at me, her face contorting in a sliver of recognition, before her attention returned to her food.

 

“I don’t like this,” she said, sawing on a piece of turkey with a knife and fork, “It’s hard to cut…”  Grandma paused then, glanced up, and whispered, “It’s hard for you too, Michael.” …before filling her mouth with another forkful.

 

She didn’t look at me again, at least not until Dad joined me at the table, followed shortly by Mom and Clint.  Dad asked if Grandma had recognized me, if she’s said anything important, but I told him “No”, later pointing out that at least her appetite was good.

 

The five of us sat at that table and tried to have a conversation, the others periodically praising Grandma for laughing.  I guess they thought that she was laughing at something in particular, but I know she was merely responding to periodic idiosyncrasies and nuances that amused her for some reason or another.  What they saw as coherence, I saw as random emotion, occasional and accidental glimpses of the person Grandma used to be.

 

There was no meaning in the things Grandma said, other than perhaps that she liked the taste of the nursing home turkey, and that it was good to have other human beings in close proximity to watch and touch.

 

Again, my parents would say different.  My uncle Clint would say different.  But they see what they want to see, and I am tragically convinced that the hovel in the wheelchair is no longer my Grandmother Shirley. 

 

After eighty something years, she’s gone from infant, to child, to adolescent, to adult, to senior citizen, and back to infant again.  Like a new-born babe, she knows nothing about the world in which she dwells now, her reality confined to dependence upon those nurses she sees with enough frequency to stay in her short term memory. 

 

My Grandmother Shirley is gone...

 

At this point, you might be asking yourself why I would write such a depressing story, why I would relate an experience so void of humor.  Well, the reason has to do with the widely-accepted concept of the soul, and how I am increasingly certain that none of us have one.

 

Growing up, I loved my Grandmother.  I loved her so much that I used to cry when she would take me home after sleepovers.  So far, she’s been one of the few people I have ever known that were genuinely selfless.  Was she that way with my father?  I don’t know.  But I can speculate that Dad’s nobility had to come from somewhere.  My brother Eric’s nobility had to come from somewhere.  And considering the rest of my family on both sides, Grandma Shirley is the only one I can attribute true honor to.

 

That being said, the puffy, gray haired zombie I saw in that nursing home was not my Grandmother.  She was no more than a frightened, sickly old woman, and that leads me to question the nature of the soul.

 

Where is my Grandmother’s soul?  Is it trapped inside that crippled, decaying meat sack?  Or did it fly away long ago?  Perhaps before her physical brain no longer had the capacity to contain it. 

 

If the latter is true, then why did we travel hundreds of miles to see her?  Why did we do our best to ease her pain?  It’s just her soulless coil my parents and I were trying to comfort, so, who gives a shit?

 

If the former is true, does her “real” soul watch from failing eyes?  Ever faithful that death will release it?  Ever faithful that the blabbering prison in which it resides will someday expire?

 

I don’t accept either.

 

If having a soul means having an identity, then, what the fuck?!?  Her identity is no more, just like a car accident victim with brain damage.  There’s no soul in there, and there never was.

 

She will die when her heart quits pumping, and that’ll be the end of it.  The same is true of me, of all of us… and that sucks.

 

When I was little, I always had a problem with the concept of Heaven, because, what would I look like when I got there?  Who would I be?  Let’s say I’d fallen off my bike at the age of twelve and cracked my head open.  Would I then be that twelve year old boy for all eternity?  Never growing up?  Never becoming an adult?  Taking it a step further, what is the soul of an aborted fetus like?

 

By that same token, what will my grandmother be like in Heaven?  Will she be the inviolate she is now?  Or will she be what she once was, still in possession of almost a century of experiences and memories?  Christians would say it’s the latter, but that’s just wishful thinking.  That’s the way they want it to be. 

 

It’s all so fucking silly to me, but I understand the reason.  Other than the desire to reproduce, the drive to survive is the most powerful instinct we humans have, and the thought of a simple end to life is unbearable for most people.  And so, they cling to reassuring dogmas that give them hope and comfort. 

 

Not a bad way to live, all and all.  In fact, it might be a necessary evolutionary mechanism that came about once our ancient brains became aware of our own mortality.  Still, it’s not an option for me.  There’s no evidence for a soul, and I’m not one of those people that can simply “choose” to believe in something just because it makes them feel better. 

 

Yep, it’s crappy being me sometimes, yet, I would never trade it away for blissful acceptance.  I would rather know.  No matter how terrible the reality, I’d rather know.

 

Now, I’ve had lots of people “pity” me for my take on things, and, ya know what?  FUCK them!!!  I don’t need their fucking pity, any more than they need mine for being nonsense-believing cowards.  I think it takes a lot less courage to have faith than it does not to.   

 

This leads right into my theories on “love”, but I think I’m gonna stop for the night and tackle that one tomorrow. 

 

Until then, don’t go slitting your wrists or nothing…