the green wave

Driving from Clemson to the hospital where my grandmother was laying, seemed to take an eternity. Being one that favored physical maps and dealing with my own health challenges, did nothing to sway my travels to my favor. I made it in time to see her in a cognizant state. Everyone was filtering in and out of her room when I arrived.

Ma Mae was in dire need for surgery on her esophagus. She was in a horrible predicament, because her stats were falling too low for her to have the surgery, yet she needed this operation to continue living. She was only allowed to sip on ice chips, for the chance occurrence she may be brisked off to surgery.

Ma Mae was an exuberant woman, full of life and never met a stranger. The hospital staff already knew they had an extraordinary woman in their hands and seemed to visit as a refuge from the banal and dreary. She was a farmer’s wife- had survived so many hardships with true grit and gumption, only to be dancing the line of life and death at the mercy of her own body.

Even though her bloodline was pure English, Ma Mae came across as a true Irish lass; she could spin a yarn, work hard, celebrate life, carry a tune and play the piano with pure love and grace. When she lived at Martha Frank’s, she would perform “Secondhand Rose” with her travelling troupe of singers from their senior community. Not unlike Fanny Brice, the irony dripped fervorously, as she was never a secondhand rose to anyone. When she began to decline, she was unable to sing with her troupe and her arthritis began to overtake her fingers; she began to say she was ready to pass on.

When we would visit Ma Mae, my brother’s children brought the sparkle of music back to her. During our time with her, she would teach them to plink along as she would gently sing to them. Her buoyant joy would surface as the echo of the woman past; we always saw the real Mae Will. However, she seemed to be missing herself more and more.

Now she was here, in the hospital bed and propped up by pillows, parched, and her mouth being dabbed with a sponge of water and gently fed tiny slivers of ice by her only daughter. This was an unfamiliar place for her to rest her head. Our family was only accustomed to seeing Granny and Grandaddy, her husband and his mother, in this state of being and dwindling, not our Ma Mae. She outlived them all, but now, it was her turn to face this cruel and unwanted battle to her end.

This time, it was our turn to tell her our favorite stories and memories of our family and times together. I was finally able to sit in the prized space, after patiently waiting my turn, hold my grandmother’s hand, gaze into her sparkly pale blue-green eyes, and re-spin the yarns of my youth and young adulthood with her and my dad’s family. The stories of her three-year-old granddaughter independently staying with her for over a week….and, shamelessly, being bribed with a visit to the McDonald’s playground to extend their visit, was one of her and my favorites.

As I became absorbed into her bubble, the room seemed to disappear. When it slowly began to come back into focus, I became more cognizant of the hums of medical equipment, my dad’s siblings and spouses, and the metronome of beats. The harsh reality made me wince. I stood up, leaned over, and I hugged the woman I deeply admired and loved without the bear-forced strength of our traditionally hardy hugs. Then, I stepped aside and let her next loved one take their turn. Repetitively, I found myself drifting in and out, absorbing some conversations and drifting into others.

Here, in the rhythmic beating, the melodies of voices, and the choreographed movements, I could not help but to wonder if anyone else was catching the coincidental beating of the echocardiogram monitor to the metronome. Ma Mae had kept this machine on her piano, the machine that kept the beats and rhythm that orchestrated Ma Mae’s living had become the similar repetitive sounds, which composed her life’s status. My heart pained with the cruel twist.

As I stared into the wave of green light, its peaks and valleys, its singing, and rocking, I was taken back to my trips upon the Irish ferries. Although the Emerald Isle is named so for its evergreen lushness, the land seems to be in every shade of green, whilst the water holds the deep shades of emerald and blue-green. The mystery lies in the water, perhaps, also a semblance to Ma Mae’s astrological water-sign.

The evergreen similarities of Ireland and the farm where my grandmother lived the majority of her life, was nearly identical. Both lands were symphonic with the gentle sweeping hills and waters. Wintergreen Farms echoed with the rhythmic sounds. Some of the melodies where the day to day activities of their farm, which would have included the clinging and clanking of Ma Mae’s cooking and baking- humming happily to herself, the family shuffling their feet in anticipation and their, seemingly, synchronized movements towards the kitchen and Ma Mae, the snipping and clipping sounds of her tending their roses and garden, the sound of her old Cadillac traveling over the gravel and dirt, the sweet soprano “woo-ooh” she would cry to call for the dogs and us grandchildren, the noises of family members, the laughter, love, and the music.

Life used to burst through the walls of my grandparents’ home just as it does in Ireland. An unfulfilled dream was to walk with her in the Irish Hills and for her to see the tranquil waters and hear the rhythmic trad bolstered into the pubs. The connection I felt to my grandmother, provided the security in my guessing that she would, also, feel the sense of “Home” in Ireland. I had felt it would be the one gift I could have given her, if I had the resources back then.

The sudden jump in the rhythmic beat, on her monitor, brought me back into Ma Mae’s new quarters. Reality settled back in. From that point onward, I traveled to see my grandmother the last few days of her life. I can still remember the last moments before the green wave flattened into a steady ray of light and sound. It lost its rhythm, simultaneously to my grandmother losing hers.

Finally, I was able to take Ma Me with me to Ireland. Her spirit lives within me. When I got to walk the lush myriad of green lands, escape over the emerald waters, explore Inishmore on my bicycle, and show my husband my discovery of a home that reminds me of their old one, she was there. I feel her smiling through me, whenever I sing, bake, or garden. She is home where I am, and she does not have to bribe me with a trip to the McDonald’s playground for me to stay with her. She is the green wave of light within me, reminding me to live with every breath I take, until my soul drifts onward.