Because elephants should live forever

After my grandmother lost her vision to glaucoma, her engagement ring went missing. We tore up the house, but it was gone. She talked about it all the time, but talking couldn’t bring it back. When she eventually entered her final decline, she had a few tests run, more for the rest of us than herself, to make sure there was nothing at all we could do. The doctor called my grandfather over and said what everyone expected, but added, “she has something lodged in her intestinal tract.” Nobody had the heart to tell her we’d finally found the ring.

Look at me, 100 word songing 2 weeks in a row. Who are the elephants in your life?

About jesterqueen:
Jessie Powell is the Jester Queen. She likes to tell you about her dog, her kids, her fiction, and her blog, but not necessarily in that order.

Comments

Because elephants should live forever — 23 Comments

  1. Oh my… she at least found a safe hiding place for her ring.
    My recent post Elephant in the room

    • That was EXACTLY what we said. She used to hide everything in this ratty pocketbook down beside the bed on the logic that “the burglar” (for whom she left helpful, sarcastic notes, should he ever visit) would never look in something so junky for something valuable. What never occurred to her is that her yard sale addiction meant the treasures and trash were so inextricably bound up with each other that ‘the burglar’ wouldn’t have made it out of the dining room without getting lost in confusion.

  2. wow…i have several elephants in my life. I hope i can feed them enough peanuts before something like this happens.

    RIP jes' grandmother. I miss mine so very much (passed in 2005).

    wonderful 100, jes, and a hell of an interpretation of damien rice's song

    • After Mummum died, Poppa was a little like the protagonist described in the song. He didn’t go bed hopping, but all of their female friends tried to give him platonic female companionship, and he just kept pining for Mummum. She died in 2006, and he followed in 2009. He really only held on until then because the two of them had a pact that one of them had to live to see my Mom through the worst of my evil sib’s life. When Amye died in 2008, Poppa’s health started declining, and he literally went into his final decline 2 days after Mom’s adoption of my niece was final in 2009. So my Mom lost her mother, her daughter, and her father, all in a very short span.

  3. I love to have Elephants in my life. I never had one.
    My recent post help with my realtionship

    • 100% — It’s something she would have considered hilarious in better health. When she lost her eyesight, she rejected traditional aids to help blind people and tried to go forward as if she could still see. She accepted help walking in unfamiliar places, as well as the gentle patter of description that my grandfather kept up for her. But she would not allow her food to be arranged on her plate so that she might remember what was where, and I guess she refused to ask about the really crunchy bites. We figure that since her fingers got thinner as she aged, the ring just plopped off her finger into her plate, and of course she couldn’t see to notice it, and she ate the thing.

      • Please tell me that hypothetical scenario will make it's way into a story. It's so brilliant, funny, tender, awful… love it!

          • I only meant the way you envision it happening. The ring plopping into the potatoes or whatever, and her just swallowing it. I've no doubt about the story itself.

            • Ah! Gotcha. That's the only way it really COULD have happened!! But you're right. that would make for hilarious dramatic tension in a scene, for instance as witnessby a kid who doesn't know whether or not to speak up.

  4. Oh, good heavens. I'm surprised you could get that down without noticing it. Seems like it'd hurt!
    My recent post Somewhere Over the Financial District

    • Yes! It must have been agony. She was a stoic firebrand, though. I can’t imagine not complaining that the bite you just swallowed tore your throat!! But it must have. It MUST have.

  5. Wow. That's an amazing story. Did it contribute at all to her decline?
    My recent post Blow. It’s Cool.

    • No, her grandmother died of a massive heart attack at age 79. When she was 79, SHE suffered a similar heart attack. And she never really recovered.

  6. This would be incredibly funny if it wasn’t linked so closely to her death. I think it is good to have humorous memories of our lost loved ones though.

    • It’s funny. There’s no two ways about it, it’s hilarious. The only really sad thing was that she was too far gone to appreciate the hilarity that she’s been wearing her engagement ring this whole time.

    • Mummum had a fascinating life. But that is by far the most bizarre thing.

  7. love this, i can't help it, it's endearing and lovingly told. thank you for sharing!

    • Thanks Marian,

      It’s kind of typical of things that happened with my grandparents. I need to start getting their stories up here, because they are awesome.

  8. You know, it's funny but so sad the way we age and begin to lose ourselves. Sometimes I never want to get old….I almost would rather be offed in the prime of my life.
    My recent post #100WordSong: Memory