Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer
An intoxicating mix of nerves and excitement came over me as the doors opened. I walked up to the reception desk and said her name. The words sounded foreign coming out of my mouth and although I hadn’t known her for long, I only knew her as Nana. “Do you know where to find her?” asked the receptionist. I froze. After three years of not knowing where she was, I had only just found her, but I didn’t know which room she was in.
Beeping sounds overlapped each other as they came from the left, from the right, behind me and ahead. There was no mistaking this environment. This is the final home for many and those beeping sounds were calls for assistance. Tentatively I paced the corridor, watching for the room number, wondering what I would find and how I would react. Turning into the doorway of room 107 I saw her in the corner bathed in sunlight. Her figure was framed by the plants in the courtyard as she reclined in her chair, reading.
“Hello” I called cheerily. She looked up and squinted in my direction. “Hello Nana, it’s me, Karen”. She beamed back at me. “Karen, how wonderful to see you!” Those words were just the encouragement I needed. My visit would be good for both of us.
Smiling, I sidled alongside her, took her frail hand in mine, leant in and gently kissed her soft cheek. “Hello Nana.” We sat quietly for a moment, smiling and looking at each other. I was desperate to take everything in, to not miss a thing. We had already missed out on so much. I’m not sure what she saw in me, or what her 95 year old mind must have been thinking. I’d been assured her mind and wit remained sharp although her short term memory was deteriorating. Nana spent most of the hours in her day reading novels or listening to Radio National. Her long tender fingers looked like they belonged to an artist or a writer and I was impressed they managed to cradle weighty hard-backs. Her beautiful smile nourished me instantly and at once I felt selfish to seek comfort from a woman who had already given so much of herself to others. I was hopeful my visit would bring her some gladness.
Nana didn’t find out that I existed until I was thirty years old. I was the family secret. My birth-mother told one person in her family that she was pregnant, her father. ‘Old Jim’ made all of the arrangements for his daughter’s internment, the relinquishing of her baby and he sent her on a south pacific cruise to get over the event. He also chose to never mention it to his wife, and took the secret to his grave. The shock, sadness and betrayal felt by Nana when my presence was unleashed on the family three decades later added further pain to this unfolding series of stories.
Twenty years ago I arrived on a doorstep of a house in Port Melbourne to meet my first blood relative. The front gate was flung wide open. The front door was flung wide open. Awash with an intoxicating mix of nerves and excitement I made a few steps towards the entrance and was welcomed by a smiling woman running towards me, her arms outreaching. It is still to this day one of the best hugs of my life. Our bodies melded into one and we held on to each other for the longest time. This was my aunty. She was my people. After a while I lifted my head high enough to look over her shoulder and down the hall I saw someone standing there. “Who is this?” I asked. “This is your Nana” was the reply. Nana, at the time a small but spritely 75 year old, reached out for me and we embraced. As soon as she heard about my planned visit, she booked a flight from Newcastle to Melbourne. She couldn’t wait to meet me.
That was the first of about six meetings over the following twenty years. There was a lot to learn about each but how do you catch up on a life-time of missed opportunities? I longed to connect with my heritage and the stories that had started to unfold about Nana were amazing. One of my prized possessions is a tiny jade Buddha which she gave me at our first meeting. What an awesome woman! A Buddha! We wrote to each other each Christmas although more recently her letters stopped arriving. I wasn’t sure if she had died, or if she had moved or if she had joined other members of her family in cutting communication with me.
After a series of heart-numbing events over the past few years I surprised myself in mustering the courage I needed to ask some more questions and three weeks ago I found that Nana had been relocated to a nursing home in a small coastal town in New South Wales. I managed to get a message to her about wanting to find out about my family history and I heard back that she was happy to help me where she could. After the longest time, it was these little nibbles that brought me to her bed-side one week ago and I was given a chance, possibly the last chance, to talk to my maternal grandmother.
Seeing her beautiful smile and hearing her say how wonderful it was to see me filled my heart in more ways that I can describe. I’d hurriedly written down some questions for her the night before but it’s hard to cram a lifetime of questions into one visit. I wanted to know the names of her siblings, of her parents, what did her father do, what did she like at school, what did she do when she left school, who were her pets, how did she meet ‘old Jim’, who was ‘old Jim’. On the surface the questions are quite banal, but when faced with the only source of the answers, it meant the world. How was I going to capture all of the answers and be present in the moment, and notice her expressions and mentally record and retain her voice, her tone, her laughter. As we sat together I felt the sands of that damn hourglass slipping away faster than ever.
We had quality time and enjoyed a conversation. We talked about the jobs that her great grand-children may have in the future, about storytelling and technology. We talked about cruelty of animals and the dreadful treatment of Indigenous Australians. It’s an issue so close to my heart and to know my grandmother unequivocally felt the same as me was wonderfully reassuring. She understood at a level I didn’t know existed for a woman of her generation. She felt that nursing homes are no place for children and we talked about the lack of exposure so many children have with people who are nearing the end of their life. She was excited to hear about my children and careful not to overwhelm her, I asked her if she would like to see them. They were marking time at the nearby beach with their dad. When Nana gave the all clear, I sent out the signal and they were there in a flash. Her face lit up, her eyes sparkled and her smile was beaming. I’m not sure what she saw in them, or what her 95 year old mind must have been thinking.
We had driven a long way to see Nana and it was time to say good-bye. I have so many more questions and I’m sure that was my last chance to ask them of her. I wanted our good-bye to be beautiful, but it in the end it was just sad. It’s unlikely I’ll ever see her again, but I took her frail hand in mine, leant in and gently kissed her soft cheek, “I’m so glad I came to visit Nana, we’ll see you soon”.