Sideshow, supporting characters and the inevitable boom, Part 3.

…..Back at the hospital it was clear that there was nowhere to go from here but down.  The monotone of the breathing machine and the beeping of the heart monitor was the background music as she sat by his bedside.  She rubbed lotion on his dry, cracked feet.  She massaged his swollen hands.  The doctor came in and announced that the following morning, there would be a meeting to determine whether or not life support should continue.  She had an odd feeling that you were really "an adult" to attend a meeting like that.  

With the doors closed and having her dad all to herself, she told him about his grandchildren...how they were full of life and how blessed she felt to be their mother.  She sang to him.  "How Great Thou Art" and "Where Can I Turn for Peace" two of her favorite hymns.  No response, but at least he seemed comfortable and not in pain.  

Her father was the oldest of 3.  His mother had been married 5 times, and had 3 children, all with different fathers.  His mother and his half sister had driven 600 miles to be there.  The half sister was accompanied by her husband, and their daughter...along with their daughter's 3 children.  They arrived this afternoon, all bursting out of  autos in which they had made the long trip.  Soon all were at her dad's bedside.  As night fell, lodging was needed.   An offer was made to get two rooms at the local motel, almost walking distance down the street.  One room for Aunt and Uncle, one room for the niece and her children.  She, would share a double with her Grandma.

They checked in.  And as she walked into the musty hotel room, she was taken aback with her surroundings.  This was definitely a "motor inn" situation.  The entire place smelled like a well used laundromat.  She often joked that her upbringing was, "a step above white trash."  But since she had gotten married, her lifestyle although frugal had been a certain standard that definitely was cleaner and brighter than this decor presented.   She cleaned up as best she could and settled into the bed for the night.  

As her grandma took her turn at the one basin in the room, she lamented the situation.  

"I just don't know how things turned out like this."  Grandma sighed.  "He was so handsome and did so much for our country."  As grandma washed her face, the thick lines and sad eyes remained.

As granddaughter, HIS daughter sat in the bed listening...she felt a well of emotion fire up.  'Really?' She thought to herself.  She stared at the frail, whisp of a woman at the basin.

She had never lived near Grandma.  But Grandma had come to visit from time to time, and since her dad had been a commercial airline pilot, he had taken her for the northwest mountain visits.

Over the years she had come to know bits and pieces of her Grandma's story.  As a young adult, she had married her dad's father - he was a traveling salesman.  Vacuum cleaners.  Her father had been born, and discoveries were made that the traveling salesman was a charming man, but a terrible drunk.  Grandma had escaped him with the baby in tow.  The rest of her life seemed to be in search of that man that could compliment her strength and that could be the father and family she wanted.  When that first husband had died, Grandma had mused, "He was just such a handsome man."  

Grandma had taken various jobs to support herself.  There were times she hired families to watch her son.  One such family was actually set up like a foster situation, with grandma signing a contract that literally put a price on a family keeping her son for a lengthy period of time.  At a later date, she would hold this document in her own hands.  This contract had sold her father's youth to a family for months and months at a time.  The details weren't known, but to her it seemed his mother had just fostered him to some random family.  She knew enough from her own daycare upbringing that other families often did NOT treat you as on of their beloved own.  When push came to shove, the "extra" or "non bio" kid gets the boot.

More historical research would prove that for the era, end of and post depression...that fostering out your child(ren) was a common practice if the family fell on hard times.  Starting in the very early 1900's, there were an abundance of fostering type contracts like my dad's.  The actual foster care systems weren't fully developed until mid 20th century.  Her grandma grew up in a world where it was common to basically indenture a child you felt you couldn't fully provide care for, to someone else.  In the northeast, groups of children were even marketed to families in the midwest in an effort to keep them off of the streets of the major cities.  

But, somehow being a young mother herself with 3 children under 8 years of age...at this time she could not see past or understand how her Grandma didn't grasp that SHE herself was responsible for how he'd grown up?  And, unfortunately there were more than a few years of resentment built up at this gray haired, mild mannered woman due to some of the foster home and mom dating in the 1950's stories her father had recollected.  Yes for years it seemed, Dad's mom must have been to blame for the mess of an adult he had become.  It had been easy to place the responsibility of a poor upbringing on her.

Yet here, now, at the basin grandma looked small, worn weary and lost.  That was her son in that hospital, languishing.  Now as the grand-daughter, and a war-torn mother of youngsters herself - she looked upon the wrinkled skin and back arched in defeat; and waves of compassion and love filled her inside.  Grandma just didn't understand.  She had done the best she could, and sat here, distraught by the situation and trapped on the same sideshow, trapped in the same trashy venue, and the inevitable sad ending.  

Kind conversation and a restless "good night" later, she lay listening to grandma's heaving breathing.  In life, it is understood your children should outlive you.  She wished she could spare grandma the trauma of the next few days.  Hell, she wasn't even prepared or ready for it herself.  But in a way, adopting what grandma must be going through, gave her a small purpose in the thing.  Like another focus, a way to step outside the pain of what was really about to happen.  Like the lit cannon, waiting for the ignition cord to burn down to the magnificent and terrible explosion everyone anticipates, but is never quite ready to experience.