April 11, 1971 Easter Sunday was the last time I saw her amongst the living. She was 60 years; she had not aged well though. She weighed eighty pounds and was more bone than flesh. Which tends to happen when ones diet consists primarily of a variety of alcohols served neat and straight up. Whiskey, vodka, bourbon and gin no matter it was the numbing affects not the taste that counted.
I was in my tenth year at the time with no understanding of life or of the pain that could eat away a person’s soul. The kind of pain buried so deep and so acidic that alcoholism can actually bring a measure of relief.
Egg hunts were finished and the children were gathered in the front yard for an afternoon of touch football. Before the game had even begun my mom came rushing out the front door, pale as a ghost, moving without the usual grace I had grown accustomed to. Following her to the car I made a rather childlike attempt to find out what was wrong. With barely an acknowledgement she slammed the car door and roared down the street.
Football suddenly seemed to be a waste of time and as I often did in times of stress I left behind my youth and disappeared into my tree house. Losing myself in a good book was always my answer when faced with confusion and doubt.
What seemed like minutes passed, but must have been hours if the read pages were any indication, before I heard my mother’s voice filled with concern calling me back to the world.
She was sitting on the patio, lost in thought, when I reappeared. A Camel cigarette smoldered forgotten in the ashtray at her feet.
I looked at her with concern and confusion wanting to ask what was wrong but not wanting to disturb her. I sat down in the lawn chair next to hers and waited patiently for her to return from where ever her thoughts had taken her.
“It’s your Grandma Brueckner, Dolores she is very sick and extremely weak. The doctors, well the doctors say there is really nothing they can do. Her body is failing and her liver has basically been destroyed. I am not sure where your dad is (they had been divorced for several years, my mom and her former mother in law however remained close) when I do track him down it will probably be too late. She may not make it through the night.”
“I want you to come with me to the hospital. I know it will be hard for you to see your grandmother this way. It is important though for you to have a chance to say goodbye. Your brother and sister are to young but you were born old I believe you can handle this.”
In a silence wrapped in the trappings of nervousness I followed her out to the car. We did not speak on the short drive to Santa Teresita Hospital. Nor did we whisper aloud as we shuffled through the quiet hallways mourners on a quest to visit the living dead.
Which many years I realized my grandmother had become; a card-carrying member of the living dead. Not the fright night version scattered through out any poor imitation of a George Romero movie but one even more frightening. My grandmother was in a medical sense alive and if not well still breathing for the first decade of my life. Her soul though was another story, her soul was dead and gone shriveled up and blown away by some long forgotten Santa Ana wind. Leaving behind a porcelain imitation of someone once vibrant who had climbed inside a bottle and lost her way.
When I saw my grandmother propped up in that hospital bed I would sworn on my life that the person I was looking at could not possibly be my grandmother. Her eyes were black holes having sunk far into the sockets. Every bone visible bone was etched into dried and weary flesh.
My mouth was dry and my tongue seemed to fill my entire mouth. My brain was frozen in neutral some small part of me understood that this was an important page turning moment in my life but I seemed to have forgotten what words were and what they were used for.
Without conscious thought I moved across the cracked and yellowed tile floor finding myself at her side. With simple movements I reached through the bed railing and took her hand in mine. For a moment her barren eyes came to rest upon me. It seemed as if she attempted a smile but it never reached her lips. She faded back into the darkness as I stepped away from the bed.
Monday morning the hospital called informing my mother that Dolores had passed away. My dad made it home for the funeral returning whence he came soon after. Leaving me with questions that may never be answered.
My father’s side of my family tree is for all intents and purpose barren of information. The few Brueckner’s or Finn’s (my grandmother’s maiden name) that I knew growing up have all moved on to wherever it is we go when our time here is through.
My dad, his mom and dad were the lot of them alcoholics. I wish I knew why. I wish I knew what moments in life were so painful that for the three of them a swim in a river of whiskey was the only answer. I want to know what took the vibrant woman I see in old pictures of my grandmother and left her without a soul.
I want to know and I probably never will.
