Sat 10 May 2008
My grandmother is 100 years old. She has survived war, poverty, hunger, immigration and the loss of everyone who could possible relate to her. She is almost totally blind and deaf.
Hayden, my mother and I visited her today.
“Happy mother’s day,” I said weakly, propping Hayden up so the light might hit his face enough for my grandma to see him.
She began stirring, trying to get herself out of bed. My mother insisted she lay still.
“David?” She asked, pointing to me.
“Yes, Grandma, it’s David and Hayden.”
“I need to speak with you,” she whispered, pointing near the side of her bed, indicating that I should sit next to her.
Reporting dialogue of my grandma is difficult. She is Russian and has spoken four languages in her life, but English was the last she learned, and it is challenging for her to find the words she wants.
I only know English, and even I have trouble find the words I want.
I moved to the side of her bed and squatted down, placing Hayden on his feet so she would be speaking to both of us. My mother squirmed and shook her head. She knew, just as I felt, that whatever my grandma was about to share with me would be, at best, unpleasant.
It wouldn’t be fair for me to write down here all that she said, for I am a born embellisher. When I sit down at the keyboard, the exaggerations, half-truths and outright lies liberate themselves from my mind. Also, what she said was not about me. In fact, I’m not sure if she even realized it was me after she began.
When I left her room, I felt like someone had beaten me with my own arms. So powerful was her plea, so palpable was her anxiety that I could hardly breathe for fear of losing my own sense of balance and purpose in this world.
She spoke of the war. She lived through several, but like most elderly people who speak of the war, she referred to only one in particular, the war that changed her life.
For her, this was the Russian revolution in 1917. According to the limited knowledge I have of her family, her father was an attorney of some sort in the court of Nicholas II (the last Tsar of Russia), making him an enemy of the rising provisional government who ultimately removed the Tsar. Later that year the Bolshevik’s, led by Lenin, overthrew the provisional government and established a new, socialist government.
My grandma had her family had no choice but to flee their homes, their country. She was ten years old. She never went back.
I do not know more of this story because my grandma never spoke of it. Even when asked, she would barely acknowledge she had a family before us. She might mention her brother, but this was a rare and cursory admission.
In 1994, while traveling in Germany, I tracked down her older brother, Leon-lev Zakoutine, who was living in a retirement apartment complex in Munich. He was a former intelligence officer and writer, publishing several small run books about religion and philosophy.
The young men who worked the desk at the facility in which he lived called him “Captain” for his senior status and warm handshake. (I hope I am getting the facts right here. I met him in my early twenties, when I thought my memory unshakable.)
He invited me to share a glass of Jagermeister with him and told me that my grandma was a very resilient woman, that she was extremely smart for someone with no formal education past primary school, that she had enormous dignity and confidence.
Older pictures of my grandma featured just the woman he described, but the person I had known my whole life was a distant, elderly Russian woman who argued with my mother and made polyester pants.
During our visit today, my grandma was none of these things–not the things that her brother described, not the unreachable grandma I had known.
Instead, she was a frail, 100 year old human being with so many burdens and fears, she did not waste a moment and shared them with me immediately.
“I saw bad things, people hanging, people shot, people killed. Right in front of me. I was sick inside. I am sick inside.”
This sentence is a mixture of things that peppered her 10 minute talk with me. I said nothing during this time. What could I say? My life is so very easy, so doughy and reclined, I felt as if I might burst into flames if I even attempted to console her.
“I cannot see. I cannot hear. I’m alone when I’m not alone. It’s awful.”
Within two minutes, my mother had taken Hayden out into the hall, a respite for her and a rescue for him.
“She wanted hugs and kisses. I bought her a car.”
The true focus of her message was her own inability to heal her wounds, to be the kind of mother she wanted to be. Her guilt over her lack of affection with my mother sobbed out of her and then sobbed out of me. Her tears had no choice but to run away out of her eyes as if they were ashamed, and I could do nothing but cry by her side.
I began to smooth what is left of her hair, and her sobs turned to a steady cry. This was not the kind of person I knew, that her brother knew. This wasn’t even the person she must remember from 90 years ago, the little girl from a well-to-do family in Russia.
Since my mind is unable to tether to any fact about her childhood, I painted her portrait. I pictured a beautiful child, all the privileges an aristocratic life could bring, darting through a lush garden in pursuit of her loving older brother.
A large house sits solid and safe in the background with a stern, important man sitting on the porch puffing away at his pipe. A woman carries two cool beverages outside, handing one to her husband, and taking a seat while holding the other. She smiles at his lack of smile, sips her drink and keeps her posture right.
The girl is happy, healthy and alive. She has no gift for premonition, no possible thought of life as it might be in 90 years. There is only chasing to be done, and she greedily seeks the small reward of her brother’s compliments for her upon his surrender.
Dignity, grace and determination simply cannot withstand the years. Many of us make believe that these things are important, that they make sense, that the world is lovely and large and we have a place in it.
Of course, this is all pretend.


