Yesterday’s poem sprung out of the experience reading her latest diary entries with her. However, it is the same as just being around her. It is possible to go from snorting laughter, we gauge our days based on how much and what kind of laughter we get from her, to moments, like yesterday, when she…
Category: caretaking
The Merging
Does your life eventually condense into just a few stories? The ones you still remember? The ones that won’t let you go? Nuances of a long life fade under the weight of so many years, so many memories. I talk like my grandmother has Alzheimer’s but she doesn’t. Yet she told me the same story…
Advice: One Caretaker to Another:
“Don’t think about it. Just do it.” This was advice from my grandmother to me a while back. I was talking about my writing. I was talking about whether I felt I was talented enough to make it. “Don’t think about it. Just do it,” is what she said to me. It was helpful…
Storm
Storm Clouds roll over, obliterate reality She doesn’t know us, Trapped in a demon dimension. He’s hanging on a cross. EMTs are creatures to fight. Hulking out, Using inhuman amounts of strength Fighting everything that’s good for her. That storm is long passed It rolled in time and again But now it’s gone. We live…
First Half of July, 1934
I am thrilled to be transcribing summer again. When I found the 1934 journal, I left a year older Babu off in 1935 in the height of summer. I don’t know if it’s because I have always been in school, college for four years and then teaching for ten, but summer is unadulterated freedom. It’s…
June, 1934 Excerpts Alternate title: Should I Play or Should I Go Now?
The Falcons is a group in support of Polish Americans with a focus on maintaining a healthy life through exercise. Apparently they also have meets and compete against other groups and in June, 1934, Babu has been enlisted to compete in Basketball. She’s a mess: Wednesday, June 20th, 1934 Aggie told me today that…
The Name List
This has been a two day mystery, the name list. This is the list of her family members: children, grandchildren, great grandchildren. My sister wrote it a long time ago and it has been stuck into the frame of the hutch, but she wanted it down about a week ago, and I thought it should…
June, 1934
My job just got a lot harder! She has been writing in a five year diary and half way through this month she must have realized that she wont keep this journal for five years or she received a new one for the next year, possible on her birthday. So, she begins to fill the…
Layers like Pages in an Old Journal
Reading her journals has not changed my perspective on what person my grandmother is, but it has given me layers. I always knew she was playful, dancing in her chair when I come dancing into the room, or making semi lewd jokes about fireworks, but I’ve also “seen” her playfulness with her high school friends. …
May, 1934, Excerpts: “Caveman”
Saturday, May 5th, 1934 I never knew how hateful it is to be snubbed. I should have expected it of “Cav.” But just the same it doesn’t help the hurt. I guess “Cav” isn’t very much in code… 😦 Sunday, May 6th, 1934 It got warm, everyone is out on the streets. Because I didn’t…
**Contains Spoliers
In late April Jeanette goes to Manhattan for vacation and Babu receives a letter the first day of May and by Mid May Jeanette is back. This passage reminded Babu of the fate of the friendship between them. Jeanette, someday in a future past I have not gotten to in my reading, will move down…
May, 1934
Babu spends a large amount of time in May – and possibly other months – reading “L” stories with Zosh. Does L stand for love? Was she reading romance novels? I giggled as I wrote that. She described that phenomenon of Spring thaw and what happens to people perfectly. It got warm, everyone is out…
transcribingmemory 