Upset,( Never with you, my always smiling, pretty, sometimes toothless lady in the backseat) I did something I never should have done. I left you for two minutes in the locked car to go inside and pay for the gas.You were not even two years old.When I came back to the car, you were talking to someone.I asked you who you were talking to, and you said, "Your grandfather." I asked you, "What did he say to you.?" You replied,"Mommy, he said that you are his very own, Laurie."
My grandfather was the only one in my life who ever called me that and he had been dead for just a few years.
Going back........
My grandfather grew up in Harlem, New York, the son of recent German immigrants.To this day we do not know if his father changed his last name to avoid the stigma that came with , Germans, during that era, or if he changed his name to hide that he was Jewish.If so, I guess we have embraced a religion that might not have been ours to be.
My grandfather always told me that no one is better than you and you are no better than anyone else.As a youth he got into fights with African- Americans and the following story was always told among men. He did not know that women, even girls, have their own ways to listen.In one fight his private parts were kind of sliced. He carried them to the hospital. He must have really wanted to have my mother. So, he did, with a little help from my grandmother.
When I was teaching Spanish, my grandfather, Charlie, enrolled at a college to take Spanish at the age of 75 for me.No matter how far away I lived from him, I would always make the trip to spend at least an hour with him.He was an uplifting man who broke into song without embarassment at the spur of the moment.
Fatherless at the age of 12, he quit school to support his younger siblings, and put them through college.He was that old-fashioned kind of a gentleman who took us to movies as children and always loved me even when I was in deep scrapes.Uneducated formally, he read everything he could get his hands on and always did the crossword puzzle to keep on learning.
When I got married and moved to Germany, I missed our visits, so we would write to each other, in that old endearing way of communication. When I came back, he was in a nursing home where I would visit during the year that my husband had to stay behind in Germany.
He was not doing well the week that I had to leave for two weeks to take Ca to Vermont with my saint of a mother for auditory training for Autism. I told him that I would be gone for exactly two weeks.
She did start to talk. Echolalia.It appeared that her painful hearing was gone.
Going back....
Ca , in Germany could not stand the sound of the toilet flushing, the sizzling of bacon in the frying pan, the hairdryer, the voices of some people, the vaccum cleaner, the blender.....I could not leave our tiny apartment just to go to the bakery without her hearing the key turn in the lock and then she would come running. She would cover her ears five minutes before a plane flew over our heads.She could hear thunder storms three towns away and tell me that they were coming in her own way. All of the things that I could stop I did, after she was diagnosed. That diagnosis in Germany was based mainly on overhearing. We stopped going outside. The pizza man who delivered even went to McDonald's for me and brought it home. Some kids with Autism are either rigid in their eating habits or may have a strong tastebud.
In the house for days, without going to our favorite parks, we all went crazy. Out of love, I tried to shield her from the world. That was the advice from the German Doctor. I am fortunate enough to have a brother who is also a Doctor and a fine one. He called me and said,"Get the hell out of the house."
Best advice I ever got. I could not shield her from the world. I had to teach her how to live in it. ( I love my brother, Rick)
To this day, I do not know if the auditory training worked. It was most likely all of the hard work with ABA, all of the summers that we missed, not even going to the pool, just sitting in a drill chair. I tried to make it fun, but I know that Idid not always. If I could go back, I would do it differently.
A couple of years ago, I asked her if sounds still bothered her. At that point in her life, as she wanted nothing to do with being labeled, she said ,"No,"
Today she said, "Yes, I just do not show it or talk about it anymore."
Back to Charlie.
We came back on a Friday night from Vermont. At around 11:00 p.m. , I went to the nursing home. The nurse told me that he was dying. I sang lullabies for three hours. I turned off the lights. I would not want to die with the lights on and people watching. Still do not know if I did the right thing. Went back the next morning, early. He was dead. Got into my car and on the radio came , "Billy Joel." His words in the song are not the same ones that I remember hearing. I heard, "Goodnight, my darling, it is time for me to go. One day , you will sing one of my lullabies to your children. ( I was already doing that-" Too- ra- loo-ra-loo-ral,Too-ra-loo-ra-li, Too-ra loo-ra-loo-ra, hush, now don't you cry- That's an Irish lullaby)."
Charlie's first love was an Irish girl named Molly. He took her to a carnival where they shared cotton candy. Bet he kissed her a few times too.
"Part of me will always be part of you , as lullabies go on on and on, they never die."
That was only the first time.Third time already said. Second time coming.....
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