OK, wish us luck. We are going to ship Grandmother off to Hong Kong today.
I apologize for not coming clean earlier; I've known about this for some time. But it hurt to know that her son has decided (possibly with some coercion by our parents) that it's best if she came home to live (or be near) him and her blood family. Cannot argue with that. Hell, I don't know why they haven't seen her in a decade, let alone how come she has lived apart from them for 35+ years.
Also, we tried shipping her to Hong Kong once before, about a month ago. What a fucking disaster that was.
It started on a Friday around dinnertime, when Father, out of the blue, said that Grandmother was leaving for good Tuesday. You just think of that, pops? It was after we failed that My Father told me this was suddenly thrown on his lap by her son, who I think told My Father that he bought a ticket for her the morning before he told me.
This was a half-ass operation from the start. Father and I went to the nursing home with only a black leather bag; this carry-on-size satchel was the only thing Grandmother was going to take with. It was going to be filled with her medication as well as instructions, so there was some space for clothes and other sundry items from her room, which Father packed.
Grandmother, for her part, acted like she didn't know what the fuck was going on. She may very well might not have known, but I believe Father when he said he told her she was going on this day. She was no help, just looking around while Father was stuffing her bag with things she may or may not have needed and I was listening to the nurses tell me where the insulin syringes, which Grandmother should inject herself, would be.
We threw her into my car without saying a proper farewell to the nursing staff and fellow residents, to which Grandmother had expressed different thoughts about them every single time I dropped by to visit her. For example, I once asked her if she liked it in the home, and she said no. But then the nurse told me that they told her that morning that she was leaving for Hong Kong and she said that the nursing home was her home. She could be playing possum -- or, she is going mentally.
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Grandmother was confused as soon as we got out of the car and into the airport. Is a sign of dementia asking questions about stupid things every single minute, like a seven-year-old? Because that's what she did. Kind of can't blame her, though; if she didn't remember she was going on this trip, this would be like when My Fucking Father took her straight from the doctor's to the home on March 28 -- namely, confused about where the hell she is and what the fuck is going on. If that were me, I'd be asking dumb questions too.
Not everything was going smoothly. I made sure I went on the Internet to Google "vulnerable adults flying alone" to make sure I could deal with every contingency, and I called the airline to make sure of her itinerary and to get a wheelchair for her, which only came at the ticket window when I asked for one. The nurse gave me a sleeping pill that I needed to give Grandmother before she got on the flight so she wouldn't act a fool. I forgot it in the car, then got lost finding the parking ramp where I parked my car.
I was given a special pass to go through security. But there was a potential problem with the TSA agent screening the IDs. For some fucking reason, when Grandmother's real son booked her ticket, he put her name down as something I have never seen before. Not only isn't the first name a name I ever remember Grandmother using, but it wasn't a name at all. It was a random jumble of letters. I think there were a double "m" and a double "u." I think the first name could've been "Rum Tum Tugger," like from Cats. The TSA agent looked at her passport, then her boarding pass ... and then both again before shrugging and letting her through. He must've figured two things: 1) I was with her and my name matched up; and 2) if someone as infirm as Grandmother in a wheelchair really is a terrorist, well then, this world isn't worth saving.
Fucking Grandmother was yammering the whole fucking time, even as I was fielding calls from my now-antsy Father waiting on the other side of security. I gave her her anti-anxiety pill, and then I told her to shut up as I was concentrated on My Father's call or getting someone to assist her through the jetway and into the plane. I got one last picture with her; the airport worker was able to get both of us in the shot, but we were small heads in a long-range photo. She kissed me goodbye as I let the wheelchair handlebars go. As I saw this big burly man push his way through the throng trying to board the aircraft, I saw her (and heard her, all the way) leave, possibly for the last time.
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But it wasn't. I have to admit, I really thought that she was going to make it. That anti-anxiety pill would put her in a daze for the whole 15 hours, then the airline would attend to her as she stayed in Narita, and then there'd be a 2 1/2-hour flight to Hong Kong, and there she'll be greeted by her son and the grandchildren and great-grandchildren she has never seen, I thought.
How could I be so wrong?
I found through Internet searches that I had to stay at the gate until the plane left, just in case something happened to Grandmother. So I stayed there, for a long time, despite My Fucking Father calling me three goddamn times and telling me I could go when the doors closed. The doors closed soon after everybody boarded, but no fucking way was I going to listen to some chickenshit tell me I don't have to responsible and make sure all the "i"'s are dotted before leaving. And I sure as hell wasn't going to drive out of the airport only for My Fucking Father get a call that Grandmother was thrown off the plane and that we had to pick her up again.
So I waited -- not too long, about 45 minutes. Then, maybe 20 or 30 minutes after the posted time of departure, one of the other people hovering around the gate motioned to me.
"Is that your Grandmother?" he asked, pointing through the double doors that led to the hallway and the jetway. There, at the end of the jetway, was Grandmother, looking around all dazed and confused.
She was thrown off the plane. For one thing, Grandmother wouldn't sit the fuck down. According to the airline gate agents (who were in turn told by the attendants of that flight), she would ask the flight attendant where her passport was. When they found it for her, Grandmother would ask one of them again where her passport was. Also, she stood up and started fucking around with the panel above them, the one where all the buttons and lights are and where the oxygen mask supposedly is housed. They said that Grandmother really was trying to pry that thing open because she was going to put her passport in there, for safe-keeping.
But, and this is how I read this, the main reason she was thrown out was because of the instructions the flight attendants found in her bag. The nurses were really nice in laying out all the information about Grandmother that someone in charge (that someone eventually being her new doctor in Hong Kong) would need in order to provide treatment for her without losing a step. But one of the instructions, glued right in the front of a manilla envelope, said that the two pre-loaded syringes encased in dry ice in her bag had to be injected at some point during the flight over the Pacific. Flight attendants couldn't administer the shots for Grandmother because they're not trained nurses and they can't be liable. And when they asked her if she could do it to herself, apparently she said she couldn't. So that's the main reason she was kicked out.
So I wheeled her back through security. And we threw her back into my car and drove back to the house. But as they made their way back inside, he asked, "Where's the bag?" In his disgust with the failure of this plan, he got Grandmother out of the wheelchair and into the car without getting the bag sitting in a basket underneath her. So we had to fucking drive back to the airport, where it only took My Fucking Father four minutes to go Lost and Found and retrieve the bag.
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So onto Plan B. Grandmother needed to be accompanied overseas. I would have done it, but as My Fucking Father went through all the Playboys in my nightstand drawer as he threw me into Grandmother's old bedroom, he also packed away my passport, so now I don't know where the fuck it is. In a sorry bit of serendipitous timing, my sister and brother-in-law had planned to come home, my sister for the entire month of August. She could now use the time she would have spent vegging out here (she had plans to see Grandmother every other day, for example) to take an impromptu trip to Hong Kong. Not only would she be able to see her off, she could also sneak in some time to see friends and family. And all of this would be paid for by Grandmother's son.
The nurses wanted my sister to come to the home a couple times, to communicate Grandmother's medical needs and to have her inject Grandmother to make sure she knows what she's doing. That shot "class" was Monday morning, and she took some time to prepare the bag for her as well try and make Grandmother remember she is leaving. I don't know if any of it is going to take, but I still think our failure was in not being honest with her about the transition from the nursing home to Hong Kong.
Nevertheless, one of the nurses there think it won't work, that Grandmother will fucking freak out again and get the both of them thrown off the plane. I hope that doesn't happen, if only because this is a plan we're trying to execute. But after seeing Grandmother be uncooperative the first time, I say it's 50/50 they make it to Hong Kong. Whatever happens, I once again will wait (this time at the unsecured side of the airport since I think I won't be allowed to wheel her in because my sister could do that) and make sure that the plane takes off before I hightail it and run. And then I will say a prayer for both my sister and Grandmother.
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I've seen her six times in the last 11 days. It's me attempting to make up for all the days I didn't visit her. I don't think that, in all the times I saw her when she was at the home, that I had a 100% lucid conversation with her. She would have her good days, but then she would have some where she would constantly talk about going home, or worse, money.
I never felt like crying after I dropped by to visit. Maybe I'm cold-hearted. But whenever I see her, it seems to me that even though the body is there, much of her mind is gone, taken over by urges to live back at home with us, or her greed. That is sad. But then I remember the time she openly accused me of taking my checkbook from her last year. And I still think that was the tipping point, the time where, even though I still think we could have handled her here, I was OK with seeing her gone. I guess that was the time I really started saying goodbye to her. And even though I will be sad, I think a part of me believes this is best.
The plan this time around, the difference between last time and this time, is my sister. Having a familiar face holding Grandmother's hand throughout this whole 15+-hour trip might be the very thing that calms her down enough to behave. But just in case I suggested that she keep Grandmother's passport, so that when she asks for the third time in an hour where it is, she can just show her.
This is going to be a huge test for my sister. I really doubt she's going to get any sleep on either flight on the way to Hong Kong. She will have to assuage Grandmother's every crazy utterance and confused question, and she'll need to look after her because there's a chance she'll start wandering around the plane. Grandmother might -- might -- even try and open up one of the doors while in-flight, but that just might be paranoia talking.
We'll see how it goes. Either Grandmother's indomitable spirit and demented brain brings another huge plan to get her to safety crashing down in flames, or tomorrow could be the last time I ever see the most important woman in my life (and yes, I include in that declaration Mother, who, BTW, has not lifted a finger to help get Grandmother to HKG). I'll let y'all know.
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