Swimming in Blood | Part 5 | Waes Hael

December 15th was my grandmother’s birthday, Mom’s mom. She would be 115 if she were alive today. “Do you mind if I wear your coat, Mary?” my grandmother asked Mom before going out that fateful night. “Not at all” Mom told her, happy to share her clothes with her very slight mother. “Will you be alright until we get back?” was one of the last things her mom said to her. Her parents, my grandparents, were going over to Aunt Margaret and Uncle Neil’s for a visit. Aunt Margaret was my grandfather’s (Mom’s dad) sister and Uncle Neil was my grandmother’s (Mom’s mom) brother; the Coleman and Twomey families twisted together like the outer strands of a double helix. Later that night, as she rushed across the street to catch a streetcar to go home, my grandmother was hit by a taxi. She lived a few hours more and eventually succumbed to her injuries. My grandfather woke Mom up to tell her in the middle of the night, forever altering the course of his tragic life, hers, and her siblings.

“Worst Christmas of my life.” Mom says of the last holiday she had with her Mom. Her family had moved on December 1st from Cambridge to Roxbury and Mom was miserable because of it. “We didn’t even go to Medford, which we always did.” remembering how they didn’t visit Aunt Margaret and Uncle Neil on Christmas Day. However, she was able to continue going to St. Paul’s school in Cambridge to finish out the year for which she was grateful. Then, less than two weeks later, her mother died and all that changed. “I remember distinctly standing in the kitchen after the funeral and Tatty (her aunt) teaching me how to make things like fish chowder and mac & cheese.” Mom said, remembering how she was pulled from St. Paul’s to go to St. Joseph’s Academy in Roxbury so that she could be closer to home to care for her siblings. Apparently Mom’s grandmother in Ireland had to be restrained from coming to America to care for her and her siblings. “They should have let her come.” I said to Mom this morning. She laughed, knowing it was true and that things probably would have gone much better for her had her grandmother been unleashed.

Maire has been sleeping in my bed for the past two days, down and out with what I’m assuming to be the flu as she hasn’t tested posted for Covid. Every three hours brings with it a couple grape chewable tablets, some containing Tylenol some with Advil. Lots of blue Gatorade, bomb pops, and “Nana’s mac & cheese”, that ever present sustenance we turn to for comfort and strength. Though I worry for my child, viruses in this home reigned by elders bring with them an added layer. “I’m going to have you stay up here today.” I told Maire this morning. She nodded, understanding why. These kids know that we live and breathe differently at home than other children their age. After a pandemic, we’ve embraced that reality and have allowed the joys to outweigh the stress..most days.

As I walk up and down the stairs delivering various things to my patient of the moment, I thought about how I used to lay in that very same room when I was unwell and watch The Price is Right with Bob Barker and that lollipop of a microphone he used to use. Mom would press her lips against my forehead as a thermometer and call Dr. Prouty’s office. I knew the instructions were always the same—popsicles, jello, flat coke, tea. She’d give me a bell to ring if I needed anything and boy did I ever take advantage of that. I remember her once really putting on a show of being my servant, getting on her knees next to the bed and asking what I would like. I knew she was poking fun at me so I did my best not to laugh. Up she would come with elements of the Dr. Prouty sick diet; I would alternate between eating a little and drifting off to sleep on well worn sheets with dusty roses. When Dad got home from work, he’d come up to see me, his rough hands clumsily dropping onto my face to check my temp as I reveled in the attention and sympathy. Those really were the days, sometimes I want to go back.

“Tell me a story” Maire asked me this morning before I came downstairs for coffee and to write. “Once upon a time there was a Mom with two little boys. One day, she found out that she was going to have a little girl and she was very excited.” I held her hot little hand in mine and she asked “Why were you excited?” I paused a minute, wanting to answer this question thoughtfully. “I was excited because our family was incomplete until you came along.” Quietly, I thought about how the female members of my family were thrilled to welcome a new sister and how every mother and female relative before me has shaped my existence and hers. I do not mean to overemphasize the feminine energy of our family but when you come from a long line of warrior queens, it would be a shame to not take note as I have and continue to do. It was a full circle moment—waiting on my daughter just as Mom waited on me and her Mom undoubtedly waited on her and so on.

My grandmother was a quiet maternal force cut short and immeasurable suffering took place as a result. That trauma, that pain, has never left this family. Neglect, abuse, addiction, illness. You name it, it has all transpired. Last night, I watched as smoke from the burning nag champa incense moved seductively through the air, as if greeting a long lost lover. I thought about my grandmother and how her loss has moved through this family much like that smoke, turning here and there. We all, my siblings and I, still feel her death in our cells. I see it in my own children too, an unspoken pain that lives on yet has met its match. I have carried Mom’s pain as my own, have cried tears for a grandmother I never got to meet. Now, Maire keeps a photo of her displayed prominently on the desk in her room. Like a yule log burning brightly to greet the darkness of winter, I see in her the ability to turn things into light and shape the course of this pain’s future alongside her brothers. All of the above and more is the real story I wanted to tell you this morning, Maire. I will read all of it to you and your brothers someday. I hope, through the telling of these stories, we can navigate through the darkness so that love, joy, and light will come to all of us. Waes hael—good health—to all of you.