The Old Lady Under The Bed

There are certain things from our childhoods that stick with us forever; something so vivid that it feels like it just happened any time it makes its way to our frontal lobe. Obviously, as we get older, our minds start to soften more, and the superfluous tends to see its way out. But those core memories remain, and can transport us back to a different place and time in an instant.

As a child, my Grammy lived in downtown LA, a stone’s throw away from the Los Angeles International Airport, aka, LAX. From her little house, you could watch the planes take off and land, which never did anything to quell my fear of flying. My parents, aunts, uncles, Grammy, would all say, “Just look at how many planes take off and land in the time you’re here! That tells you how safe flying really is!” Well, sorry to tell you, Uncle Jim, but I was born and raised on the GROUND. Where I can feel it beneath me. And there’s no (or very little?) possibility I’m going to drop hundreds of thousands of feet at random to my impending doom while my tootsies are planted firmly on the silky, luscious, plush green grass. So, as much as I appreciated these pep talks, curbing my anxiety over flying was never going to happen.

It didn’t help that the first time I did fly, at eight years old, we were on our way to Mexico City and the airline used real glasses instead of plastic. For some reason, said glasses were left on the counter during the steepest takeoff ever (and I mean STEEP! It was like we were on a rocket ship headed for the stars), and they came crashing down in a blaze of glory, creating a cacophony of sound that would make Beethoven wince, only to be told by my darling brother, “That was the engine. WE’RE GOING DOWN!”

I almost took my dad’s finger off from squeezing it so hard. I remember looking down and his thumb being purple, then gazing up at him to ensure we were safe and him sporting a very convincing, though obviously superficial, smile that said, “This is fine, everything is fine.” We also all got Montezuma’s Revenge on that trip and ended up going home early. But not before my mother left our passports and birth certificates on the breakfast table of the hotel, as the customs officers offered a deal of leaving me behind with them while they looked the other way for the rest of my family to get on the flight home. I don’t know how they got out of that one, but I’m very glad they did. I’m also very glad my parents chose not to sell my hair. Because there were lots and lots of offers for that, too. Geez.

Back to Grammy’s. I can still smell her kitchen; it always smelled like something fabulous was cooking, even though I don’t think I ever saw her cook anything. I can taste the frozen chocolate chips in the cookies she kept in the freezer for my brother and me, and the tart taste of the Diet Cherry 7-Up she kept in her Frigidaire that we were only allowed to have if we agreed not to fight with each other. I will never forget the feel of the bulky and brilliant Sears catalog always set atop her fancy coffee table, where I would pick out my “grown up” outfits for my future as a “successful woman” (at what, I wasn’t sure, but I knew I’d be dressed to the nines for it), while silently screaming for her to unmute the TV after the commercials were over and Jeopardy was back on. I can feel the softness of that weird, crocheted doll that held the toilet paper on the back of her pink toilet, surrounded by dishes of potpourri and tubes of Ben-Gay.

My mother used to say that her mother was the worst, but I didn’t see it. Sure, she was blunt (she once asked why I was dolled up in stage makeup when I was 13 and we were in a public setting. I wasn’t, I was just experimenting with using makeup at the time. She told me I looked like a hooker and to do it better if I didn’t want to be taken for a floosy. I ditched the blue eye shadow right then and there). She was also quite fond of my brother and me. We were the youngest set of grandkids (in a very big, Irish-Catholic family – honestly, if someone came up to me on the street today and said they were my cousin, I’d likely believe them because our extended family is massive, and it tracks), and by the time we came along, she had very few effs left to give. We made her happy, and she made us…aware of her quirks.

When I was 12, I contracted mononucleosis (and no, NOT from kissing!) Someone in our grade had it, spread it, and I got it. It was brutal. One minute, I felt fine, the next, I felt so tired, I could barely get from my bed to the couch. I wasn’t mad about the time off from school, but I was mad about being sidelined for so long. I’m not good at being sick. I’m too squirrely to sit or lay down for more than twenty minutes at a time (unless I’m sleeping), and to be forced to rest is just not my scene.

For some reason, I decided I wanted my Grammy to come stay with me while I was convalescing. Both of my parents worked full time and my brother couldn’t have been less interested in me being ill (he had various other reasons for ditching school, none of which included caring for his sick little sister. There were malls, and skate ramps, and waves to be explored! I couldn’t blame him).

My mother was the youngest of eight children. The next youngest to her was ten years older than she was. My Grammy was 44 years old when she had my mom, and in the 1940’s man, that was wild. I don’t ever remember my Grammy looking like NOT a Grammy. She had wrinkles like a Shar Pei, and an attitude that commanded respect. She was not to be messed with, and we never did. My mother had a commissioned piece of art next to their phone box in the dining room of a dragon breathing fire to remind her that, when her mother called, dragons weren’t real and she’d get through it.

So, when Grammy came to stay, she made her presence known. She taught me how to play bridge and hearts, she made me egg salad sandwiches, and she let me watch her game shows during the day. It was the best! Grammy didn’t have any patience (a virtue I was also born without!) and she didn’t like that I didn’t feel good. She stayed a whole week and I felt like I was on top of the world! Los Angeles to Lakewood doesn’t seem far, but in actuality (and with traffic), it is, and I’m sure she missed her chair and her TV, and her lovely little kitchen. I know my cousins probably had much more time with her than my brother and I did, but that week was (and still remains) so special to me. She was old! And she still agreed to be my babysitter simply because I wanted some “Grammy time.”

Around the time I was 18 years old, Grammy started to decline in health. She was in her late 80’s and was struggling to remember faces and places. During that time, the family decided to place her in a nursing home; it was one of the best in California, even though it was a two-hour drive away. I had agreed to support my mom through navigating this new chapter in her life, and went with her every weekend to visit (despite the hit to my social life as a result). Sometimes, she was lucid as could be and would ask me about school, boys, theater, whatever. Other times, not so much, and she would talk to me about “Mary” and “Joseph” and doing right by “Marie” (my mom’s name); one day telling me she wasn’t afraid to die, the next, that she wasn’t ready to go. It was a mindfuck for me, and I wasn’t sure if my being there was any help. But I still went, and I still ate pudding with her, and I still told her about the goings-on of her late-teenaged granddaughter, and I still held her hand when she felt scared. It meant a lot to me, and I’m glad I had that time with her before she passed.

She died there. And it was sad, but it was also expected. I remember when she passed, I felt a relief for my mom, even though she didn’t seem to feel the same. I sang at her funeral, and didn’t feel blue because sheesh! She’d lived a really long life! I remember some of my cousins being so sad at the funeral, and I wanted to comfort them, but just didn’t know how. My brother and I were so much younger than all of them, and decided it was better to speak softly, and carry a big stick.

I still miss her sharp tongue that only a Grammy could get away with.

Now, my mother had a way of waking dramatically, and I mean EXTREMELY dramatically, when awoken by another. Despite this, she would insist my brother and I wake her upon returning home from a night out, in order to ensure we’d made it home by curfew. When we would walk in, whether together or separately, we would have to wait at least three times before she awoke, and when she did, it was always jarring. We’d first whisper, “Mom. Mom. Maaaaaaahm!” Then we’d have to turn up the volume to a full blown “MOOOOOM!” And she’d thrash, throw her covers, fling herself up and say, “UGH! Don’t DO that!” We had gotten so used to it, that we knew if we were coming home that night, mom was going to have a nighttime fit of epic proportions before we could retire to our rooms and go to sleep.

The night after my Grammy died (and before the funeral), I went out with some friends to lament and blow off some steam. It had been a really long week, and I was spent. I just needed some girl time and a round of karaoke to put myself back together. I hated seeing my mom sad, I hated the idea of death in general, and I hated how sad I felt about the whole thing.

My mother, still insistent on us letting her know when we were home, was sound asleep. I probably got in around midnight, maybe a tad later. Per usual, I went to her and my dad’s room to let her know I was home safe, and within curfew limits.

At this time, I had a cream-colored, brass daybed, which contained a trundle bed underneath for my guests. My mom was very big on this, as well as having full designer control over my room in general. She insisted on a chair rail, floral wallpaper above it, and a solid “Disney blue” paint color below it, despite the fact I was almost 19. I managed to hang my James Dean posters and pictures on my closet walls, but the rest was out of my control. Any time we moved (which, tended to be a lot. My mother was never satisfied with where we were. She always wanted to go bigger, better, and more. And the first thing she always did when buying a new house was decorate my bedroom. It never mattered if it was my style or not, because it was her style for me. And what she said, went). But, on this night, the underbed mattress and pop-up box spring was not there. I’m pretty sure my mom had loaned it out, which again, I had no say in, so it didn’t really affect me.

With the absence of the underbed, though, meant a huge, wide-open space under my bed that I wasn’t used to. There was nothing stored under there, because it typically held a bed. Without it, it was just a whole lot of nothing. Had I had this bed during the Night Stalker’s presence, I would have been ecstatic. Lots of room to hide. But at this point, I couldn’t have cared less; I just wanted to go to sleep.

So, I get home, hang my purse, quickly splash my face with water, and prepare to wake my mother. I hadn’t even changed into my pajamas yet, because I didn’t want a lecture about being two minutes late. It was always better to let her know we were home first, before we did anything else, because she would definitely count the minutes to use against us. I stood in their doorway, ready for the flailing, deep sighs, and protestations to not do that to her after the third or fourth time I loudly said, “MOM!” Except, she didn’t do any of those things.

Instead, the first time I whispered to her, she silently sat straight up in her bed, as if she was being operated by a remote control, looked me dead in the eyes, raised her arm and pointed directly at me. She squinted her eyes and scrunched her nose (which was not typical, since she required bifocals and could otherwise not see two feet in front of her), and very calmy said, “I see the old lady. She’s peering at you from under your bed.” She then slowly laid back down, curled her blanket over herself, and went back to sleep.

I.Was.Stunned.

WHAT? What old lady? Was it Grammy? Was Grammy under my bed? And why was she peering at me?  What was actually going on, and why was I involved? I couldn’t imagine what I’d done to make my Grammy mad (other than beat her at Jeopardy, which I did. And she wasn’t happy about it.) But in the afterlife, was Grammy still pissed I knew the calendar date that began the 20^th century?

Here I had all this new space under my bed, and now I have to think about my dead Grammy not only being under it, but peering at me as well? I stood in my parent’s doorway for what felt like a decade before heading to my room. When I opened my door, I immediately turned my light on and tried to see under my bed from across the room. It was dark under there, and I couldn’t see shit. Even with the light on. So…with my best Mary Lou Retton impression, I bounced from my doorway to my bed in one fell swoop. I don’t think my two feet even touched the ground before I was safely in the middle of my bed, curled into the fetal position, with the remote control to my TV in hand. Luckily, I had my own television, equipped with cable, in my bedroom. Sitting in the bright lights (which included my ceiling light, and a vanity light set next to my bed), I had also turned the TV on to soothe my wary soul.

Eyes wide open and constantly surveying, I watched MTV for the entire night, staying awake until the sun came up. My dad always woke early, and I knew once he was awake, I was likely safe. Still, I wasn’t ready to exit my bed, just in case Grammy was still there. When my mom woke up and saw my door open and my lights on, she asked me what I was doing (as I was still in the fetal position in the exact same spot I’d been for the last 8 hours). I told her I still hadn’t recovered from the night’s events before. She asked, “What events? What happened?’

I was aghast! How did she not remember what she said to me?

She had zero recollection and couldn’t believe the story I told her. She managed a “My goodness! That must have been scary.” YA THINK? YES, it was scary! It was terrifying! And then she said, “well…it certainly sounds like something my mother would do. Be sure to watch your step.”

This did not help! Be sure to watch my step? I needed to know if Grammy was coming for me, and if so, why? Then I thought, hmm…maybe it’s just Grammy having my back. Like I said, she was always really fond of my brother and me; maybe this was just her way of letting me know I wasn’t somebody to be messed with and she’d be under my bed if I ever needed her. That thought somehow gave me peace.

From then on, any time I made egg salad, or smelled potpourri, or saw an airplane in the sky, I thought of Grammy. I still do. But that doesn’t mean I don’t currently FULLY use the space under my bed for storage, negating any space for dead old ladies to reside.

I’m sure Grammy would approve.