Not Really Gone

By Blaire Sharpe

In every family there is a rockthe person that keeps things together. In Blaire Sharpes family, that rock was her grandma. As she shares the inspiring story of her relationship with her grandma, Blaire expands on the notion of what it really means to be loved.
When she was just an infant, Blaires troubled parents divorced. Since both parents were incapable of raising Blaire and her siblings, the children were slated for foster careuntil their grandmother, Eleanor, stepped in to raise them as her own. As Eleanor valiantly struggled against a family legacy of alcoholism and depression, she modeled strength and wisdom to endure the most challenging of times. Still, Blaires life was not perfect. As she matured into adulthood, she battled addictions that eventually led her into recovery, just as Eleanors health began to decline. When she found herself sandwiched between two generations, each increasingly needy, Blaire poignantly reveals how she discovered the true meaning of love and commitment, and the essence of what it means to be a mother.
Not Really Gone is the story about the undying love a grandmother gave her granddaughtera love that inspired her to carry on and become the rock in her own family.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 8, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504905213

Blaire Sharpe

Blaire Sharpe holds master’s degrees in Business and Mental Health Counseling. She specializes in working with adults suffering from mood disorders and survivors of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Blaire lives in a suburb of Detroit with her husband, three children, and two dogs. This is her first book.

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Prelude

Every difficulty in life presents us with an opportunity to turn inward and to invoke our own submerged inner resources. The trials we endure can and should introduce us to our strengths. Prudent people look beyond the incident itself and seek to form the habit of putting it to good use.

—Epictetus

In every family there is a rock—the person who is the glue that keeps things together, who is the engine that keeps the family running. In my family, that rock was my grandma.

The enormity of my grief over Grandma’s death has begun to gradually fade, and as it does, I fear that my memory of life with her will fade as well. I look around me and see nobody who shares my history. My father’s tragic death in 1976 drove a wedge into an already unstable family. We scattered like shards of glass in various directions, never to become a whole family again. It was Grandma’s love that made me whole. When she died, I lost my prime witness. And so I struggle to write all that I can remember, all that I can piece together, so that I may continue to loosen my grip on my grief without also losing my past.

This is a different kind of love story. It does not describe the romantic, soul mate love of most love stories, but a kind of love I have found to be truer and more lasting—love that breathes life into those it reaches, love that continues to bloom even after the death of the lover. This story is about the love my grandma gave to me, breathed into me, and taught me; love that inspired me to carry on.

Foreshadowing

And then suddenly, the hand of destiny changes everything.

—Paulo Coelho

They call it anticipatory grief—the grief you experience when you know a loss is coming. For years, my grandma’s demise hung over me like a black cloud. I played out the possible trajectories in my mind, imagining my response to each. It was clear to all concerned that Grandma was mine to take care of. I felt this responsibility in my core—not as a burden, but in a possessive sense, the way a mother takes ownership over the care of her children.

Grandma was born Eleanor Lavinia Daniels in 1914, near Kitchener, Ontario. By the time I entered Grandma’s life, she was in her late forties—the same age I was when she died. It is sometimes difficult for me to grasp that she had an entire life before me. What I experienced with Grandma in the forty-six years we were together seemed full enough to call whole, yet it was not. I was only a portion of her experience, yet she was the most significant part of mine.

I lost Grandma little by little. Once she hit her mideighties—having already lived longer than both her parents by several years—I witnessed a slow and steady deterioration of the woman who raised me. I noticed the physical impairments first. Though she was otherwise healthy, Grandma had always suffered from something similar to vertigo. She described her bouts of lightheadedness as feeling woozy. When doctors would ask her if she meant dizzy, she would protest. "It’s not dizziness! I don’t know how to describe it. I just feel woozy."

When these spells came over her, they would last several days or even weeks. She made countless visits to specialists in an attempt to determine the source of the problem, but to no avail. During these spells, Grandma would suspend her usual, active life and sit at home. I appreciated the wisdom she displayed by not driving during these times. As the spells increased in frequency and intensity, she began to respond to social invitations with noncommittal statements like We’ll have to wait and see how I feel.

Grandma and I spoke almost every day. The timing of these calls morphed with the changes in my lifestyle and living arrangements. When I was single and working and attending school, I would phone Grandma from work or at lunch, whenever it was convenient for me. Wrapped up in my own world, I would sometimes miss calling for several days, resulting in an indignant message on my answering machine. I was annoyed by such attempts to make me feel guilty, though I was more deeply annoyed by the truth of my self-absorption. How long could I continue playing the toddler—the ping-pong of running away, defying, only to realize that I’d gotten too far from the security of loving arms?

Fortunately, the universe knocked the self-absorption right out of me by gifting me with children of my own. Once I was married with children and reliably sober, I was able to reciprocate by becoming a consistent, dependable presence in Grandma’s life. For years she was the first person I spoke to every morning. One of us would call the other just to check in; we would listen to all the mundane details of each other’s days. There was comfort for both of us in knowing someone else was keeping track. At some point before day’s end, we would check in again. And with each closing I love you, there was a deep note of importance in our voices, a vehemence that stressed how much each of us wanted the other to feel the magnitude of our love.

My home was a short fifteen-minute drive from Grandma’s house where I grew up, but it felt worlds apart. Our current home was in an upper-middle-class neighborhood that housed all varieties of physicians, attorneys, upper managers, and other type-A individuals. Though we had lived in this home for two years, we still weren’t utilizing all of its five bedrooms, three and a half baths, and three thousand square feet. Jacob and I had spent months looking for this home within the one square mile where he was willing to live. One evening our Realtor phoned and said, I found your house. We viewed the home the next day, a day before it was to go on the market officially. Stepping inside the foyer, a sense of certainty washed over Jacob and me: the home was perfect for us. Freshly painted off-white rooms and newly refinished hardwood floors created a bright, clean atmosphere. In the family room, windows spanned the length of three walls, overlooking a beautiful deck and a large backyard. Six months pregnant with Sasha, I had rubbed my expanding belly and envisioned the many hours we would share in the warmth of that family room. By the end of the day, we had negotiated terms for purchase of the home, which never officially went on the market.

One morning when my daughter, Sasha, was two years old and my son, Zeke, was about six months, we were having breakfast in the kitchen, the bright sunlight of morning shining through the abundant windows. Sasha was using her oatmeal as fingerpaint on the child-sized table in the kitchen. Zeke was in his high chair, and I was attempting to spoon-feed him, trying to keep the cereal and applesauce in his bubbling mouth. I instinctively reached for the phone and dialed Grandma’s number, tucking the receiver between my shoulder and neck so both hands could return to the task of landing food in Zeke’s mouth. Soon Grandma and I were exchanging good mornings and information about last night’s sleep (or the lack thereof, in my case).

Then I asked Grandma a question, and there was a long pause and finally a faint, incoherent response. My heart raced. Grandma! Grandma! Are you okay? On the other end was more incoherent mumbling.

Grandma? I’m going to hang up the phone and call nine-one-one. I was trying to sound calm for her sake, but I was not doing a good job of that in my panicked state. It’s going to be okay! Just hang on!

Trembling, I quickly dialed 911 and relayed what had happened. The composed woman on the phone asked, Is there someone at the house that can open the door? Remembering that the next-door neighbor had a key, I replied, If the door isn’t open when you arrive, break in.

It would take me twenty minutes to get to Grandma’s house. I phoned the neighbor, and fortunately he answered. From where he stood in his kitchen, he could peer directly into Grandma’s house, through her living room to where she was sitting slumped on the floor of the dining room with the phone dangling at her side. I’ll go right over and call you, he said as he hung up the phone.

Oh my God! Oh my God! I was shaking so much I could barely function. All the what-ifs raced through my mind. Is this it? I wondered. Did Grandma just die? Did she pass out? Do I leave or wait for the phone call? I gathered the items needed to leave the house with a toddler and an infant: diaper bag, extra clothes, water, snacks, books, toys. Sasha began to cry, no doubt in response to the anxiety emanating from me. Not now, Sasha! Not now! I willed the phone to ring. Please tell me she’s okay. Please tell me she’s okay. When it did, my caller ID indicated the call was coming from inside Grandma’s house. I steadied my trembling hands enough to hit the talk button and held the phone to my ear. Is she okay?

She’s talking a little, but I don’t understand what she’s saying. The ambulance is just pulling up. I’m going to go let them in. I’ll call you back.

Exhale. And there it was: the first glimpse of the end, the first moment I considered Grandma’s death as a real possibility. Not yet. I’m not ready. Grandma was my anchor. She loved and believed in me in ways I could not do for myself. I could not foresee a world without her in it.

After Grandma endured several painstaking hours of pokes and prods by the hospital staff, they told me that she had suffered a minor stroke, adding that it was fortunate that I’d called her at the exact moment I did. A few days later, Grandma was transferred from the hospital to the Willow Lane Nursing Center for further recuperation. Willow Lane was just two miles from my home, and I visited her daily. It was during one of those visits that Grandma and I had our first serious talk about whether she should remain in her house alone. She insisted that she wanted to continue living there, as she had since the house was built in 1940. She’d raised two families there, and offered shelter to several more. She was not ready to leave. I understood, but I was also concerned about her safety, so I suggested a compromise. She agreed to wear a Lifeline bracelet with a button that she could press to alert EMS should she fall or feel ill. We also agreed to hide a house key somewhere outside so we didn’t need to rely on her neighbor to open the door for EMS. When Grandma left Willow Lane after two weeks of physical and occupational therapy, I was breathing a little easier.

Beginning

Beginnings are always messy.

—John Galsworth

Growing up in an alcoholic family is like being raised in a war zone. Life is, at best, unpredictable. Threats lurk; traps are set; people explode; survival becomes the goal. It is difficult to pinpoint the origin of the trouble because it has been present, simmering quietly, for generations. Then an event occurs that ignites full-blown chaos.

My father’s childhood looked, from the outside, idyllic. He was smart, athletic, and popular. His sister, Judy, was three years younger and equally attractive and talented. Grandma and Grandpa were admired and envied for producing two such wonderful children.

Dad was the quarterback and captain of the football team at Oakdale High School. During his senior year, he was watched carefully by many college scouts and considered a leading contender for a scholarship to Michigan State University. Toward the end of the season, while playing a game in the pouring rain, the center hiked the football. Dad caught it, backed up, and scanned the field for an open receiver. The rain obscured his vision just enough to make a successful pass unlikely, so he opted to carry the ball down the field himself. As he turned his body to the left in preparation for moving toward the sideline, his right foot stayed firmly planted in the mud, ripping the tendons and ligaments in his knee. He fell to the ground in pain.

Dad didn’t get the scholarship, and his dreams were shattered. He attended Michigan State anyway, hoping to join the football team as a walk-on. Though he was considered smart and especially good at math, the transcript from his two years at MSU told a different story. It showed no As and some Bs, but mostly it was littered with Cs, Ds, and numerous Fs. Dad left MSU after six semesters, with eighty-one earned credits and a grade point average of 1.78. He went to work as a draftsman in a local manufacturing plant.

Dad showed signs of a drinking problem early. During the summer of 1958, when he was twenty-two years old, he and his buddies spent a few weeks on the west side of Michigan, fishing and drinking. At some point during the summer, Dad returned home with my mother, announcing that they were going to get married. My grandparents were blindsided but offered their support nonetheless. Mom’s history was, and continues to be, vague. At twenty-one years of age, she had already been married and divorced. She had given birth to a baby boy who died before reaching one month, never having come home from the hospital.

There was a small civil ceremony. Neither Mom’s parents, who were divorced, nor her two brothers were present. The following February, my sister, Darlene, was born. My parents bought a small bi-level home in Utica, Michigan. A small town on the edge of farmland in Macomb County, Utica was struggling to find its footing as an urban, rather than rural, area. The Cold War brought purpose to the region, as Chrysler’s Packard Proving Grounds was used for tank testing, and the Utica Nike Site was established to shoot down enemy aircraft in the event that the United States went to war with the Soviet Union. These projects attracted jobs and people and spurred on new residential construction.

When Darlene was sixteen months old, my brother, Rusty, was born. He was named Gerald, after my father, but had acquired the nickname ‘Rusty’ long before I had any idea that it was not his given name. Mom worked nights as a bartender. She and Dad often handed off kids through a babysitter rather than to each other. With their differing schedules, the marriage became more and more estranged. Dad was drinking heavily, Mom was returning home long after her shifts were over, and they blamed each other for their misbehavior. Even so, Mom became pregnant once again, and I was born sixteen months after my brother. By that time, the marriage was virtually over. Mom filed for divorce, and a legal battle ensued during which time Darlene, Rusty, and I spent half the week with Dad at our paternal grandparents’ and the other half with our mother in Utica.

Throughout the divorce process, Dad and Mom accused each other of being poor parents. Dad was rebuked for his alcohol abuse; Mom was chided for her relationship with a mysterious man identified as X in the divorce documents. In the end, the court determined that they were both unfit parents and awarded legal custody of their three children to the Oakland County Court. Physical custody was granted to my father with the stipulation that we reside in his parents’ home and that Grandma would commit to being home full-time to care for us.

Grandma had just hit her stride as an empty nester and was working as a receptionist in the beauty salon at a department store in downtown Oakdale. Her friends told her she was crazy to consider quitting her job to take on the task of mothering three small children. Grandma could not imagine choosing otherwise. Without looking back, she welcomed us into her home, raising us as though we were not her grandchildren, but offspring from her own womb.

Grandma and Grandpa lived in a red brick bungalow in Oakdale. The 1,100-square-foot home was built in 1940, when they paid four thousand dollars to purchase it. Over the years they kept the house meticulously maintained, inside and out. Darlene and I shared the bedroom across the hall from my grandparents. Dad and Rusty slept upstairs, which was a large room with a smaller attached room designed to serve as an office or library. The smaller room became Rusty’s bedroom. The house had one bathroom, which never seemed to be an issue until the teenage years hit.

Life was cozy in the small bungalow. Grandpa and Dad left for work every morning, and Dad hired help for Grandma a few days a week—an African American woman named Pearl. Pearl was the spitting image of Aunt Jemima. She helped clean, cook, and care for us as Grandma went grocery shopping or ran errands. I didn’t understand that Pearl was hired help; I thought that she and Grandma were friends. I loved Pearl. She had these strong, cushy hugs as she squeezed me into her ample bosom. She also made the world’s best homemade biscuits—they were famous among my young friends—that left our house smelling like a bakery. I didn’t understand why, when visitors came to our home or if she was over for special occasions, Pearl would fade into the background. I would tug at her arm to join the fun, and she would shake her head no and tell me, It’s not my place.

My early years were full of the things that make childhood fun: preschool, pony rides, trips to the zoo and the farm, swimming pools, and birthday parties. There were plenty of kids on our street, making softball, kickball, and games of capture the flag regular events. We attended church every Sunday morning and participated in all sorts of social functions there; neither Dad nor Grandpa ever went with us. Grandma found solace in religion. She regularly attended the Episcopal church in downtown Oakdale before our arrival. Dad, however, wanted his children to attend the Congregational church that our neighbors, the Carltons, attended. Dad chose Mr. and Mrs. Carlton, his best friend’s parents, to be our godparents. And so Grandma left the church she had grown to love and feel at home within and joined the Congregational church in Oakdale, where she remained committed and active the rest of her life. I have warm memories of Saturday evenings when Grandma would give me a bath, wash my hair, and wrap me in nice, warm flannel pajamas that she had just taken out of the dryer. Then she’d roll my hair in spongy pink curlers that I would wear to bed; my curls would be brushed out the next morning as I dressed for church. Every Easter I got a pretty new dress and white patent leather shoes (which I, without fail, managed to scuff up, leaving brown streaks along the sides before church was over). On Christmas Eve we dressed in red and green and attended the candlelight service. As we grew older, Grandma joined the church choir, her beautiful voice recognizable from among the crowd of choral members.

On Sunday afternoons we saw Mom, per her court-ordered visitation rights. My predominant memory of those Sundays was that she was always late—a half-hour, an hour, sometimes even longer. Occasionally she wouldn’t show up at all. Grandma would have us dressed in clean clothes and waiting in the living room while our friends ran around outside, a place that was temporarily off-limits to us. We often spent those afternoons with Mom driving through nice neighborhoods and walking through Realtor open houses, looking at homes she would never live in. A frequent stop was the mall, where Mom would shop for herself and leave us bored and frustrated. Sometimes she would give us a few dollars and send us off in the direction of the toy store. On the way back to her apartment, we would pick up Taco Bell or Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then she would sit us in front of the TV while she tended to other things until it was time to take us home, late as usual. Never did my mother truly interact with us during these visits.

Dad dated a woman named Denise for several years. Denise had two children, and we often played together. One Saturday, Dad and Denise took all five kids and drove to Harsens Island, a sparsely populated island in Lake St. Clair, reached via a short ferry ride. There was a two-lane road around the perimeter of the island, and Dad drove very fast, bouncing us all up and down on the bumpy road. It was like a roller coaster ride. Everyone was giggling and laughing except me—I was frightened. It was April Fool’s Day, and Denise had schemed to put pepper in a piece of Dentyne gum to give to Dad. We arrived home to a dinner Grandma had prepared for us. As we sat down to eat, I overheard Grandma in the kitchen scolding Dad about driving with the kids in that condition. After dinner, Denise offered everyone a piece of Dentyne. There were smirks around the table as Dad bit into his piece and a horrible look came across his face. Everyone laughed except for me—and Dad. He was likely still brooding over Grandma having called him out about drinking and driving, but I thought he was angry about the gum. My heart ached for him. At five years old, I already knew I didn’t like practical jokes.

Dad hoped to marry Denise, and he was getting ready to pop the question when she unexpectedly broke up with him. Unbeknownst to Dad, Denise had been seeing another man, a neighbor and a high school friend of his, and she had decided to marry him. For the second time, Dad’s dream of the happily-ever-after family was crushed. He went into a tailspin and began drinking more frequently and heavily. He would come home drunk in the wee hours of the night and wake Darlene, Rusty, and me to make homemade pizza. Darlene and Rusty thought it was great fun; they would eat pizza and sleep in Dad’s bed. I developed tummy aches and begged out of the festivities. I didn’t understand drunkenness at the time, but I did understand that there was something strange about Dad that left me feeling distressed and unsafe. One evening, Dad was smoking in bed with Rusty asleep next to him when he nodded off, dropping his cigarette and setting the mattress on fire. He stumbled to the top of the stairs and yelled down, Ma! The mattress is on fire! Grandma came running up the stairs, jug of water in hand, to find Rusty huddled up against the wall, asleep. In his drunkenness, Dad had not noticed or remembered that Rusty was there.

Dad began coming and going, leaving for days or even weeks at a time. In July 1967, he was admitted to Oakdale General Hospital for a mental breakdown. Hospital records indicate that he had a depressive reaction and chronic alcoholism. He spent four days in the hospital drying out and then was prescribed Antabuse and discharged. There would be four such admissions over the period of one year. Each time the doctors would stabilize him, explain the consequences of continued excessive alcohol consumption, and send him on his way. But pressure from both the family and his employer only seemed to exacerbate his drinking. Eventually he lost his job and stopped contributing to our financial support. My grandparents had been using their savings—money they had earmarked for traveling during retirement—to support us. When they reached the end of their savings, Grandma turned to welfare. She applied for Aid to Dependent Children and was told that she would need to evict my father from her home in order to receive monies. Lacking options, she evicted her son.

Grandma and Grandpa did everything they could to provide us a stable, nurturing environment. To do so, Grandpa worked a sixty-hour week at a small tool and die shop not far from our home.

Grandpa was born in 1911, the eldest of five children. He was in his fifties during my first decade of life. He had black hair that always looked shiny from the Brylcreem he combed through it each morning, and his skin was tan from the sun. He loved to work in the yard, resting off and on in an aluminum chair with woven straps for the seat and back. He would place the chair in the middle of the sunniest part of the patio, close his eyes, and let the sun bake him in warmth. The heat never seemed to bother him. I would observe the content look on his face and wonder if he was imagining himself on a tropical island beach, waves rolling rhythmically in and out.

Grandpa smelled of smoke, aftershave, and whiskey. There was usually a cigarette propped in one corner of his mouth, and his eyes would squint as the trail of smoke off the lit end floated upward, daring to blur his vision. He smoked unfiltered Camels until he was in his sixties and his health deteriorated. When doctors told him to quit smoking, he switched to a pipe. Then his scent shifted to that of the cherry-flavored tobacco he stuffed into the pipe. In his shirt pocket he carried a silver lighter with a flip-open top that he maneuvered one-handed, like a magician. The lighter was engraved with his initials, EPP: Edward Phillip Phillips. I never understood why his parents did that—gave him a middle name virtually identical to his last name. I concluded that they lacked imagination.

Every morning, Grandpa would open the mirrored medicine cabinet and take out a white mug with the Old Spice name and familiar blue ship printed on the side. In the mug was a shaving cream cake and a brush with soft, brown bristles. Grandpa would run the brush under the water and then place it inside the cup, swishing it around to create scented foam. He then brushed the foam along his face from the left temple down to the chin, from the right temple down, and across the mustache line, and then fill in the cheeks. Then he would lift his chin toward the ceiling and spread the foam across his neck, returning to the cup for more foam as needed. Rinsing off the brush, he would place it on the edge of the sink and pick up a straight razor, proceeding to stretch and distort his face in various directions as he harvested the prior day’s growth of whiskers. When finished, he would rinse off the straight razor and return it to its designated