Transitions

My grandmother, my one living grandparent, moved to an assisted living facility about a week ago. She left her house of the last 25 years, her city of the last 57(?) years, and moved to Pensacola to be closer to my dad. I haven't seen her new place yet, but she was able to bring a few things from home. She's not very mobile and hasn't been for a long time now, which is one reason that it finally came time for her to move. However, she is very sharp mentally. She told me that a very nice nurse at the facility was bringing her the crossword from the newspaper, but they were bringing her the "easy" one and she had to ask if they could bring her the New York Times.

She's also very much a people person. Family members have suggested that maybe that's where Nora gets it, and they may be right! It must have skipped a couple of generations, though, because most of the rest of us range from "more reserved" to "sort of antisocial."

One thing I've observed about all of my grandparents is that they know themselves so well. They know how they like their toast, what time they like to get up in the morning, which cabinet they keep their trashbags in. All minor things, but things that they settled on long before I was born. I have always found their routines comforting. I do well with routines myself, but they don't come very naturally to me. It has always seemed like it has taken me some effort to figure out what I want from life, even minor things. Anyway, it's hard to imagine Grandmother without her existing routines, having to come up with new routines for the first time in so many years. This will be the first place she'll have moved to without my grandfather, or any family member for that matter since I'm pretty sure she always lived with family before she got married. She has always taken comfort in her home, in family heirlooms she's collected and things that she has purchased or been given over the years. Her house had a lot of clocks, so I associate clocks chiming with her and my grandfather. She's told me and my sister that we can take pretty much anything we want from her house, and there are certain things she wants each of us to have. My dad is an only child and so we're the only two grandchildren. I'm incredibly flattered and I know I will value having some family heirloom, but it seems sort of wrong to be taking them now. Then again, she doesn't have a place for them in her new home, and the reality of the situation is that she won't be returning to her house in Mobile. That's pretty hard to wrap my mind around...