Grandparents

Kernie looked at me with concern. We stood waving to a Cadillac heading away from the airport where we had been dropped off. Through the back window, we could see the bald little head of Amber who was actively seeking us out—“where did they go?”—She was nine months old. We were headed out for our first vacation since she was born.

In the car, Kernie’s mother had asked: “Do you two have a will yet?”

“No, we have not set one up yet.”

“Hmmmmm” she responded, “I guess I will take care of her if the plane goes down.”

This was not an unusual conversation with Bobbyette who aspired to bring us all, but Amber especially, to be a proper Southern Baptist. This orientation found her understanding that bad things really do happen. This start to our vacation was not auspicious nor was it relaxing—- and would lead to our appointment with a lawyer within the week of our return.

A little older, Amber was with my mother, Lethe, who was by nature not a model of grand parenting. When I told her she could expect a grandchild—her first—I had the distinct impression that she was angry— as in, being a grandmother somehow would date her. She fought that though; she had Amber for a long weekend a few years later. We picked then up from the San Jose Airport and when Amber was out of her stroller, she clung to Kernie, inseparable, forever. Lethe smelled of Vodka.

Our life in Washington widened the distance from the children’s grandparents and we adopted to that, becoming self-sustaining without the benefit of their help. But before Washington, there was Salinas, where Amber lived for four years. She did have grandparents in Salinas who, while not blood relatives, played their roles well and oddly forecasted the future that many of us have experienced.

The current national housing crisis is old news to us. Buying a home in Salinas in 1979 was prohibitively expensive for a young couple; interest rates were in the double digits and the cost of housing unusually high. To qualify for the loan, we hid Kernie’s pregnancy. The initial idea of how long we would wait after the birth before Kernie returned to work was naive to say the least. We delayed that return despite the mortgage because plans change when you think you understand the world and then find a newborn in your arms—and feel things you never know you could.

The reality remained unchanged. There was a return to work date. In my medical practice, I cared for a couple who needed to supplement their income. They agreed to take Amber on the days Kernie and I had concurrent work shifts. The first week came and went; it was clear we had a problem. Amber used both a bottle and was breast fed. When we picked her up, her stomach with uncharacteristically distended and she often gurgled up milk. Kernie suspected they, “propped her bottle.” Amber's head had a definite scent of cigarette smoke. On the third day of the second week of babysitting, Kernie got a call asking for permission to take Amber with them to a cock fight. Salinas was not an ordinary slice of suburbia! As it happened, there was a fire at the hospital where Kernie worked and it was to be closed for repairs for a month. Kernie picked Amber up and we let my patients know she was not going to work after all and they would no longer be needed.

But we needed someone. I delivered a patient who was a lovely young woman from Kansas. Like many Midwesterners, she was hard working, polite, practical —and she did not smoke. Her plan was to not return to work and develop a day care business out of her home. We did an interview and found her reasonable; a deal was sealed. Amber had a peer companion with a loving mother to take care of her three days a week.

Months later, my patient told us she and her husband had decided to go back to Kansas. We were given notice and started to look for an alternative. The husband had a family in Salinas and they had been helping with the daycare. Diane, the husband’s mother, gave us a call. “I have been thinking. I am going to miss my granddaughter but I have fallen in love with Amber and I would be willing to baby sit her for you. You do not need to pay me.”

I met Diane and Bill some days later. Bill ran a steam cleaning business and he had a second son that helped with that work. His wife, Diane had an easy going manner with Amber; they clicked and it was clear that this was a good environment—one that Amber already knew. A deal was struck.

Bill and Diane gave us a taste of the current national dilemma. As we got to know them, they held beliefs that we found unusual and incompatible with ours, and yet we all had social graces that allowed for positive familial interactions. It was clear to me three months in that they would lay down their lives for Amber. THAT trumped any definitive need to convert or separate over the issues that divided us.

“What kind of issues are you talking about, Randy?”

The front door to their home had a small sign next to the door bell. It read, “This house protected by Smith and Wesson.” The impression given was quite different in that place and time when compared to now. Guns were very much an inescapable cultural norm in Salinas. Bill had been raised in Eastern Oregon and was business-like regarding his sense of the responsibilities gun ownership required. I never saw a gun in their household but was told that he slept with it, “under his pillow.” There was a little anxiety, not knowing how well they slept in that when I was on call, Kernie would come at the end of an evening shift (11:30 PM) from her hospital and enter their home and pick Amber up from between them where they lay sleeping.

Kernie and grew up in households where the family dinner had some formality tied to it. Coming to pick Amber up at dinner time found us in awe as she wandered from chair to chair soundlessly begging for a mouthful of food which was dutifully provided. No high chair. No bowl of food to measure the amount eaten. No beverage. Kernie labeled this approach to feeding, “the Helen Keller beggar child style.” This judgement was received with smiles but no change: their house their rules, just as with many grandparents.

The love and devotion between Amber, Diane, and Bill was clear as the months passed. We shared stories of the day when picking her up. Diane started reading to Amber and Bible stories were included. I thought that was great. One day, picking her up, Diane got very serious. She gave me a book. It was a hard bound book of some four hundred pages. It told the history of the great conspiracy that led to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. It was not the story I was familiar with. The book alleged a more complete conspiracy and suggested that the Catholic Pope (Pope Pius IX to be specific) had spearheaded the assassination in the 1860’s. The book did not got a serious read. In the follow up-conversations, I think Diane worried that I was too busy to take the time to read it and provided me with the comic book version.

Diane’s church was now a focus of her life and I grew concerned about the messaging Amber was receiving—but I had faith that our bond as parents and how we were teaching her about life could bear this odd alternative approach three times a week. This was eventually questioned when Diane took on a project from her church. She was attempting to convert a pediphile ie to re-invent himself through the church. He was in her home for Bible lessons. For many, this would be a deal breaker and we wrestled with the issue of judgement, ie having this man in the home with our daughter and our faith that they would lay down their lives to protect her. How could we be sure?

Her devotion to Amber and by inference, us did have limits. When we found out Kernie was pregnant with twins, Diane received the news politely but with obvious reservations. “After they are born, I will be happy to take care of Amber but I won’t be able to help with the twins.”

With the approach of Amber’s fourth year of life, we found life in Salinas no longer viable and I accepted a job in Washington State. Bill was thrilled for us; he missed the Northwest and he put the idea in my head that I could someday hope to live on a lake. This prediction proved true. His son, twenty years old, did not know of the Northwest and in the Fall of 1983, his father took him to Eastern Oregon to hunt Elk for the first time. His son had been raised in a suburb and had no special interest in hunting game but engaged with his father to learn the tradition and to bond. It did not go well. His story on return convinced me that big game hunting was not something I was ever likely to do.

“I am with dad and his friends; it was cold (December) and there was a dusting of snow on the ground. We spread out early in the morning and headed through the scrub. I was alone and resting when I heard a noise; I dipped my head low to the ground and through some scrub, I could see an Elk looking right back at me. I took aim and fired. It bellowed and ran off. I followed a blood trail for what seemed like miles when I came up on it. I had shot a foreleg off and it was down, gasping for air. I did not know what to do. I was freaked out. My father found me a little later and was angry. ‘How could you let it suffer like that?.’ He drew a knife and cut the animal’s throat. It took us the rest of the day to dress it and hike it out…….”

I did not ask if he thought it would go better a second time.

Diane seemed a bit reserved if not depressed as our departure came. The need for babysitting all but disappeared as Kernie no longer was working hospital shifts and my work load was no longer based on the schedule of a resident physician. We landed in Washington and settled in. Within a few months, Diane called. She wanted to come and visit. We were surprised but welcomed this. She then asked that I research who could do a facelift for her while she visited.

Diane was a lovely middle aged woman. She had avoided the sun. The need for a face lift was not at all apparent to me. I have since learned, my opinion is rarely solicited and does not really count when this question comes up. When I asked her why she wanted it done on a visit with us ie without her people. Her answer reflected a desire to have it done and for no one to know. Our support as medical people made this choice a natural one. And Amber could help.

I knew nothing of cosmetic surgery—having been trained in a county hospital where half the patients were indigent does not provide much opportunity for this. I went to the yellow pages and found a plastic surgeon at random and managed to get a basic fee schedule. True to her background, Diane presented to his office with an envelope of cash.

She convalesced on our fold-out living room sofa. Amber was very helpful to her emotionally. Kernie provided technical support and I got an education regarding cosmetic surgery. Diane explained, “did you know they peeled all the skin off the muscles of my face before trimming it up and re stitching it?”) . Her bruising and swelling were quite dramatic. The rapidity of her healing was also an education.

We had nice grandparent chats and in a sense, she came to say good-bye to Amber. It was touching, sad, and I felt sympathy for her. She left with her lovely face intact and her resolution to move on firm. No one in her congregation was likely to know of her surgery. With her religious convictions, I ran through the list of the seven deadly sins as an exercise; vanity was not among them, which surprised me. I did judge her —and found her lacking —but remain convinced of her love for us and especially Amber. She and Bill did let us go at this point as after a Christmas card at the end of the year, we lost contact with them.

Todler Amber in Salinas

My Maternal Grandmother, Jackie