Andy Rooney_ 60 Years of Wisdom and Wit - Andy Rooney [84]
The nurses are very good, but without apparent compassion, and you realize it has to be that way. They could not possibly work as nurses without some protective coating against tragedy. We all have it. In those seven weeks Mother lay dying, I visited the hospital fifty times, but when I left, it was impossible not to lose some of the sense of her suffering. I knew she was still lying there picking vaguely at the blankets in that sad, familiar way, but it didn’t hurt as much as when I was there, watching.
I wondered—if she was the President of the United States, what extraordinary measures would they be taking for her? How could I get them for her? She is not President, she is only my mother. The doctors and nurses cannot know that this frail, dying old woman did a million kindnesses for me. They wouldn’t know or care that she was girls’ highjump champion of Ballston Spa in 1902 or that she often got up early Sunday morning to make hot popovers for us or that she drove her old Packard too fast and too close to the righthand side of the road. No stranger would have guessed any of those things looking at her there and perhaps would not have cared.
There is no time for each of us to weep for the whole world. We each weep for our own.
Grandfatherhood
It seems to me that grandfathers are a lot younger than they used to be before I got to be one.
When I had a grandfather, all grandfathers and grandmothers were born at that age. It seemed as though they had always been what they were, grandmothers and grandfathers. They were kindly old folks and their grandchildren could do no wrong in their elderly eyes. I guess I haven’t taken naturally to being a grandfather. I have no interest whatsoever in being a lovable, gray-haired old codger who approves of everything his grandchild does.
Up until last week, I thought of Justin as my daughter’s son. I had seen him for a day or two five or six times a year since he was born six years ago, but I’d never spent an extended length of time with him. Either his father or his mother had always been present when Justin was at our house.
Last week was different. Margie and I had this cute little blond, brown-eyed person with us all week. I seemed to have him more than Margie when I was there because he wanted to do what I was doing. I was trying to enjoy what little’s left of my vacation in my workshop. If I hammered, he wanted to hammer. If I sawed, he wanted to saw. It’s onehundred-percent impossible to accomplish anything in a workshop with dangerous tools and a grandchild who insists on being there with you.
“Are we going to do our work?” he asked as soon as he got up every day. Some work.
I kept waiting to feel like a regular grandfather. I kept waiting to excuse him when he did something dumb or thoughtless. Instead, I found myself treating Justin more like a person than a grandchild. I was liking him more and more as a little friend.
The only thing this kid seemed to remember me for from last summer was that I got up early and made him pancakes for breakfast. Naturally, everyone else thought that was cute so I had to get up early this year and make him pancakes for breakfast, too.
Elephants and grandchildren never forget.
I spent quite a bit of time with Justin, trying to break him of his eating habits. He must have gotten them from my daughter Martha, or his father, Leo. He never got them from me. I never saw a young boy so interested in fruit and vegetables and so uninterested in candy, soft drinks or junk food. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, anyway.
He doesn’t want ice cream. The next thing he’ll be telling me is he doesn’t want anything for Christmas. I queried Martha about his aber
Giving granddaughter Alexis Perkins