On a lighter note . . .
Even in the hospital, Gam is Gam.
My sweet cousin Becky gave me the run down on an awful (and awfully funny) evening in the hospital last night.
“Becky,” Gam asked. “Does Chad know that I like to say shit?”
“Um…yeah. He does.”
She turns to Chad–Becky’s husband.
“Chad, you know that I say shit?”
“Gam–come on. Everyone knows you say shit.”
Gam thinks for a moment.
“Well I just think it’s the most wonderful word. I mean think about it. There’s nothing that will get your point across quite like shit. ”
I imagine Becky and Chad looking at each other–half rolling their eyes, half laughing.
Gam keeps going.
“It fits every situation. Try it. Give me a situation where shit wouldn’t fit.”
“Ok,” Chad offers. “The nurses.”
Gam shakes her head. “No, something bad.”
“Ok. Your cancer.”
“Oh, shit!”
Apparently this went on for quite some time. Becky and Chad spouting off situations and circumstances; Gam demonstrating how shit can be perfectly applied and emphatically stated to get your point across just right. All of them laughing hysterically.
“There’s just something that happens when you say it,” she sighed. “It releases something–makes you feel better. I think it might be my favorite word.”
Then there was the bed.
They have beds in hospitals now that inflate and vibrate periodically to prevent hospice guests from getting bedsores. At one point, she leaned in close to Chad and whispered, “Heeeyyy…before you leave tonight, you might want to ask about taking one of these home for your house.”
Gam winked big.
Chad laughed.
“Gam–Becky and I don’t need one of those.”
“Oh that’s right. You’re young. You don’t need a fancy bed.”
And then there was the oxygen mask.
They had Gam hooked up to all kinds of breathing machines. She ended up separating the tube from the mask and “smoking it.”
“What?” she said in response to funny looks from the nurses. “It’s my peace pipe!”
Cricket Cricket Cricket
“Oh come on. Let me have a little fun here.”
Beck told me the nurses keep commenting on her–how much they love her, what a riot she is. “Oh everyone just loves your grandmother here.”
How could they not?
I doubt the nurses have ever seen someone with such spunk and such a cheerful attitude in such a shitty time.
(That’s right. I said it. I learn from the best. )
blackbeltgam 