COLUMN: Remembering my grandmére

For years, she hasn’t remembered me on sight, but it always surprises me when my Grandmére Comeau asks about my husband.

“Is Greg still fishing?” she’ll ask, following up with, “He was always a fine looking young man.”

I guess that explains why she remembers him.

But you’d think since I’ve been around for 38 years – and he’s only been part of her life for less than half of that – I’d register more than a placing glance. Instead it’s usually more of a pained expression.

I see her studying my face, searching for some spark of familiarity, when my mother says, “Do you know who this is? It’s Tina.”

“Ah, yes,” she’ll say nodding her head.

I smile, knowing that sometimes she remembers me, but most of the time she doesn’t. So I remember for both of us.

I remember being in her house in Meteghan – her downstairs and me upstairs in the room that had the peek-a-boo vent hole in the floor over the kitchen. What I don’t remember is how many times as a kid I’d yell out, “Hello!” thinking she hadn’t seen me. Because, of course, she’d pretend that she hadn’t.

I remember her stuffing. Weird, that I’d remember that. But I liked the taste of it. And she always had great cookies in the pantry.

And I vividly remember in the corridor of the Yarmouth hospital – after days of watching my grandpére slip away from cancer – the way she squeezed my hand when my uncle walked down the hallway and simply said to her in a whisper, “C’est fini.”

I can still hear her exhale that heavy sigh.

But these days what I remember most about my grandmére is what she doesn’t. My children, and how much she loved my boys. She would sit in her rocking chair in the kitchen and giggle and laugh when we’d stop in for visits. She was always thrilled when I’d bring her pictures of the kids. And I don’t know who squeezed harder during a hug with my boys.

She’d play tug-of-war with them in the living room using a roll of red yarn. And like she did with me for all of those years, she’d ‘jump’ in surprise when the kids yelled out to her from that vent in the floor above, “Here we are.”

So I can live with the fact that she doesn’t remember me. But it breaks my heart that she can’t remember them.

She still giggles and laughs when they’re around. But it’s really just an old woman enjoying the visit of two children. Not like it was before when it was Grandmére Comeau visiting with Jacob and Justin.

Which is why one day last year I was so happy when grandmére asked my mother, “How is Jacob doing in school?” Coincidentally just minutes later the kids and I just happened to stop by for a visit at Villa Acadienne in Meteghan where she lives now. “There he is,” she said excitedly as Jacob walked through the door.

My grandmother turns 94 this week. Because of her Alzheimer’s she’ll never be excited to see me when I walk through the door.

But that’s okay, because I remember she used to be.

(THIS COLUMN ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN THE YARMOUTH VANGUARD IN JANUARY 2008)