Wrong way, go back

You've seen those big red and white signs on the highway? When I was a kid I wondered how the dickens the signs knew?

Earlier this year Nana scared the bejesus out of us all with a health blip. Her brain went off to la la land and we were quite stricken at the real possibility she'd never know us again.

In the jumble that was her reawakening mind, apparently the first family member she referred to was dad. Something about this was comforting, I like to think he held up the intergalactic wrong way, go back sign and her consciousness did an obedient U-turn in its etheric white Mazda and zoomed back home.

Just as well. There is beer to drink, computer Solitaire to play, pink lipstick to wear, Lancôme to slather, and rosaries to recite. She's a great tale-teller, last year when she visited (she lives interstate and I can't travel) we talked a lot. About the bay horses she rode as a child; her schooling; the maid who had nits (I was excited about the maid, I didn't know I knew anyone who had a maid); her courtship with Grandpa - he was a soldier and they went on their first date at the Cosy Corner Cafe; and the weather, which was thrilling because there were floods and she loves extreme weather events. Meals on Wheels did a delivery, absolutely sopping wet, and she gleefully told them, What wild, wild weather we're having! Then she made them look out the window at the torrential rain, even though they'd just been in it.

Since that last big blip, Nana's not the same. She's had to move out of the beautiful heritage-listed home that's been in her family for a couple of generations, and into a place where she can receive better care. This is a massive loss, her home has always been such an extension of her, it's hard to tell where she finishes and the high ceilings begin. I've always felt the walls and creaky floors somehow embodied her. I wonder if she misses the gigantic bunya pine outside the kitchen, and the agapanthus flanking the long, curved drive.

There's been a general turning point this year, it's the first time some of my grandparents have been as incapacitated, albeit differently, than I am. It's hard to watch their struggle with drastic functional limitation and loss of independence. But I'm also aware how lucky they are to have lived long, healthy, productive lives.

In many ways I have more in common with my grandparents (as they are now), than with my peers. I understand what they're going through. We talk on the phone, and I try to be a supportive confidant. I hope in some tiny way I demonstrate that we can live well, contentedly, holding fast to the good things, regardless of what hijinks our bodies get up to.