October 22, 2003 - 11:29 p.m.
It's difficult to buy a birthday card for your grandmother when nearly all of them say wishing you all the joy of today for the rest of the year and each day is a new beginning. Most of her days are spent alone, waiting for her daughter or granddaughter to visit and drive her to visit her husband, hoping to catch him when he's awake for a few minutes.
Today we discovered that the boys are marvelous at waking their great-grandfather. Zachary ran up to his chair, grabbed his emaciated arm and shouted WAKE UP GREAT GRANDDDADDY!!!
He did.
There are many days that I am certain he does not know us. Today was not one of them. He smiled at Zack and tried to pat him on the head. He smiled at me and murmured something like hey, hey, hey to us. I quickly unbuckled Marcus from his stroller to lift him into Granddaddy's field of vision - and he had already gone back to sleep.
Marcus is getting to be a heavy little fellow and when he wiggles he's almost impossible to hold onto. So I sat him on the arm of Granddaddy's chair in order to get a better hold on him. Marcus grinned and chanted gra-da-da gra-da-da and gave him a very hard kick in the thigh.
That worked about as well as Zack's yelling. Granddaddy opened his eyes and looked a little surprised but smiled again at the giggling baby who had appeared beside him. Then he looked up at me and asked - just barely intelligibly - What's his name?
This is Marcus, Granddaddy.
Sleep pulled him down again. Zachary wanted to go ride in the elevator. Marcus wanted to play with the water fountain. Grandmommy stayed with him a while, trying to get another response from him but he didn't open his eyes again for more than a moment. So we left quietly to buy the boys some ice cream at Carl's (they're closing down for the winter soon, after all) and eat the cake my mother baked. I gave Grandmommy her birthday present with the only card I had found to my liking: Happy Birthday. We love you.
