Big Baba

03.31.08

The big baba was in fine form this weekend displaying all kinds of erratic emotions. She talked a lot to herself as if she was her own best friend, very Gollum like. We had lunch in the same bagel, breakfast joint we normally go to each time I come to Atlanta, only because we don’t know where else to go being no longer an Atlanta dweller. They ordered breakfast food, and I grew faint at the thought of breakfast food. Nothing appeals to me here, and I always have the hardest time figuring out what I could possibly order and also be willing to put down my throat. They both ordered coffee, caffeinated for the big one and decaf for the little one. The big one kept saying that it was strong coffee, really good strong coffee. We chatted and covered the basics. There was nothing to talk about really, and I hate revealing anything about my welfares to them because any info I give to them might as well go straight onto YouTube. I end up hearing it later from random people I don’t even know. I kept the topics generic and tried to get them to talk more by asking endless questions. Unfortunately their stores were always the same. They have only a past and not much of a future. There’s always tension between both of them. I know they would much rather have lunch handled separately, far away from each another. I can’t understand why they still continuously act so juvenilely girlish with one another. You’d figured at their age all those female games would seem rather pointless. If one started to say something, somehow the other one would cut in with a totally different story to make the other one feel inferior. They would go back and forth endlessly, and we’re put in an awkward situation not knowing whose side we should take, obviously neither one’s. After the devastating lunch, the little one decided to walk back to her house on her own, probably totally pissed off, annoyed, and irritated, and wanting to get the hell away as fast as she could from the other one. This little one is so frail and small with osteoporosis, you question if she could make it across the parking lot, yet all the way back on her to her house. It seems like she could hardly lift her arms to open a car door but she always manages, she always manages. She can also drive on her own, walk far distances, get her own groceries, entertain people, and go to parties on her own. She is still very much alive. The big one has physical problems with her shaky hands, hearing problem, and vision. She has aliments all over, had colon cancer, and is in chronic pain, which I’m sure the little one feels also, but the big one isn’t shy about airing hers. You’ll see the big one for the first time after a six months hiatus, and you'll ask her how she’s doing. She'll tells you she’s lost half her vision, her lower right back hurts, shows you her wrist, which is tied up with a wrapping brace, and tells you how old she is, and tells you that she wonders if she will die tomorrow. It breaks my heart to see her in such a state and know that she works so hard each day to stay alive. She goes and buys flax seed oils to prevent colon cancer, gets shitake mushroom pills for another anticancer remedy, endless pills of this and that, and spends hundreds of dollars each week on promise pills. She reads everything, believes in everything, and is willing to try everything regardless how ridiculous it might be. She fills up notebook pages of what to mix of this and that to help an aging sick body live longer. She is disillusioned by health magazines articles that promise her ultimate vigor and what she sees on the TV about miracle pills and what she hears from the other elderly folks in her building. She tries so hard and is beyond obsessed with what she believes is the cure for cancer. She wants to live so much and has so much hope in her research, and I just don’t know how to help her because we are all aging and losing in this battle.

We took her to Kmart to return shoes she bought the other day. She insisted on going to Kmart and refused to go to target the other day. She bought five pair of shoes. She doesn’t get out much. One time shopping at any store could be all the shopping she would get for the entire year unfortunately. She made a comment about her shoes as she was in the checkout line. She said that she didn’t know if she would live long enough to wear all these shoes she's about to buy, but they are so cheap. They are only five dollars! Her eyes were wide and had goofy grin on her face. There was only one shoe out of the batch which was in the twenties, and she spent a long time deciding on this pair, sniffing them, touching them, thinking about them, and perhaps licking them a bit. Anyway, those were the shoes she returned back to the store. The next store was whole foods where she bought two bottles of flax seed oil and some bread since the little baba commented on how good the bread was. She had to see what she was missing out. Then we went to Publix to do her grocery shopping. I was thinking how she normally walked slowly and had her wrist pain going on, so I took it easy pushing the cart slowly on her behalf so she could keep up. Next thing I realize she commented on how slow I was going and she took the cart out of my possession and pushed the cart down the aisle really fast like a completely possessed old lady who just got an adrenaline shot. Must have been the strong coffee. She was lifting milk gallons on her own, bagging things on her own, careening down the aisles, zigzagging all around. She knew where everything was and told us to go get this and that on aisle three and aisle four. She looked on her list and saw that she was missing something and was not sure where it was exactly. There was a pause and we all held our breaths. She guessed on aisle four, and when she got there, she was correct. She gave a giggle-laugh saying how she was right and that goofy grin came back. I love her smile. She does it so rarely, but when she does, it’s like sunshine. She was in a really great mood and we attributed all the hype up energy to the strong coffee she had earlier. Anyway, we were in the milk aisle, and she really wanted the Mayfield milk. Apparently it was her usual purchase brand. She associated the yellowness of the carton with the brand. It was a lot more expensive than the Publix brand, and we kept trying to get her to go for the Publix brand. She insisted on Mayfield but then there was a date problem. Mayfield expiration was April 13th. She couldn’t deal with the number thirteen. She went through every single gallon in hopes to find one that wasn’t thirteen. They were all thirteen, and only the 1% milk had a different date. She ended up with the 1% instead of the 2%. We must have been there for ten minutes, looking for a suitable gallon, debating the date issue, and the pricing of each brand. We did a shit load of shopping and the grocery cart was totally filled to the rim. I don’t’ think I’ve ever filled up an entire shopping cart before. I’ve seen others do it and don’t know how it is possible for someone to eat so much, but she’s packed up the cart completely.

After all that shopping and while finally back in the car, she sighed and said “I waited a long time for you to come back to Atlanta. Oh, how long I’ve waited.” She had two full days of shopping and god knows how long she’s been dreaming of getting those shoes from Kmart. In the car she started to ramble on about how the other baba could walk and drive and do her own shopping. She started to become Gollum again. She rambled on and on about her physically handicaps, her hands, her eyes, and how she relies so much on her children and grandchildren to buy her necessities and take her places. She talked about her age over and over again and how she used to be young, how her hands used to work, how she could see and read better. Abruptly, she came out of her gollum state and said, “Oh what has happened to me. Oh god, oh god, what has happened to me?,” as if she just suddenly realized how old she really was. There was a pausing silence. My heart was breaking. All I wanted, more than anything right then and there, was to give her that magic pill.