Now, I'm going to reserve this week to spend time with my family, and visit my grand father at the hospital as much as possible (friends can wait).
He has the Parkinson disease and has recently been admitted to the geriatric department of the closest hospital for some problems.
He has the Parkinson disease and has recently been admitted to the geriatric department of the closest hospital for some problems.
My Grandad looks like the typical european nice grandad that you can find pictured in children books.
He actually is this grandad. When i was a child he was the best stories teller you could imagine, he had a bunch of stories that he told my cousin and I over and over again. We wanted those, not a new book or a new thing that he could have invented, no, we wanted the ones we knew by heart, because of the way he told them, he spoke, he acted, it was like a real performance. Not that he was dancing or jumping around, but the ton, the passion, the heart he put in it amazed us each time like if it was the first time. We were scared about the ones that were saying about ghosts, devil, or pieces of human being falling down into a big soup pot warming in the fireplace in a hunted castel.
He knew how to invent enthralling stories. And they all started by "Un jour quand Grand-Père il était p'tit, il prit sa Grand-Mère par la main et....." (" Once upon a time, when Grandpa was small, he took his Grandma's hand and...").
So yes, when he was a young boy, my grandad's name was Grand-Père already, and his girlfriend was named Grand-Mère as well. My cousin and I didn't see the problem. When we got old enough to realise the anachronism we liked it even more, and didn't want those names to change in the stories.
He actually is this grandad. When i was a child he was the best stories teller you could imagine, he had a bunch of stories that he told my cousin and I over and over again. We wanted those, not a new book or a new thing that he could have invented, no, we wanted the ones we knew by heart, because of the way he told them, he spoke, he acted, it was like a real performance. Not that he was dancing or jumping around, but the ton, the passion, the heart he put in it amazed us each time like if it was the first time. We were scared about the ones that were saying about ghosts, devil, or pieces of human being falling down into a big soup pot warming in the fireplace in a hunted castel.
He knew how to invent enthralling stories. And they all started by "Un jour quand Grand-Père il était p'tit, il prit sa Grand-Mère par la main et....." (" Once upon a time, when Grandpa was small, he took his Grandma's hand and...").
So yes, when he was a young boy, my grandad's name was Grand-Père already, and his girlfriend was named Grand-Mère as well. My cousin and I didn't see the problem. When we got old enough to realise the anachronism we liked it even more, and didn't want those names to change in the stories.
We also had this hands game called something like " Ring e nai " (think Italian) where the participants pile up their hands, alternating the turns, and the one who is under all has to put his hand on the top, and so on while Grand-Père is singing a song in a language he invented for the game (with some italian words in it, his parents were Italian), and when the song says its last words the one who is under has to slap the hand that is on the top before this one got the time to move. By a magic way, it was every single time my Grandad's hand ready to slap, and me or my cousin reacted always fast enough not to be touched on the top. But once again, we didn't see the trick.
( Did Grand-Père adapted the length of the song? Did he sing mysterious lyrics so we could never really know when the song was about to end? Did he leave us time to take back our hand to make us laugh at him thinking he was slow? Naahhh...)
One of the activities he used to take us to was Orly Airport. Just to watch the planes from inside the glassy hall. Planes for us were something amazing, so huge and flying, so noisy and so light... Bringing people from the other side of the Planet, and taking others to other planets. Going somewhere crossing the sky, for me, meant going to another planet. Maybe for you in the Caribbean Islands travelling by the air is more common, but in my childhood in France it was something totally strange, and that i would never do. (I was far to think that i would actually take one of those planes, to settle a few years later, on this new planet which was Barbados). So it was a real magic time shared with my Grandad.
Important part: he always bought us a Rocher Suchard in an airport shop, a famous french chocolate rocher. Just one, it was like a diamant in our kids' hands. We loved it. It's during one of those afternoons that my cousin left his pacifier, his jaw went down of emotion when he saw a plane taking off. It fell down far downstairs by a space between the floor and the wall. He never asked for it again. You see how magic it was ?
Grand-Père was also Santa Claus for yeeaaars, until the year before i left for Barbados. Yes i was 23 and the youngest person in the family was my sister and she was 16, so what ??
But it wasn't the costumed thing you are thinking about, it was a way more subtil.
Description: When the Christmas lunch had just finished, we were all still in the dining room, we heard a loud noise, of something... falling down the fireplace of course ! (we always took care of turning off the fire, don't worry, we were smart). And then a little bell, announcing that Santa finished delivering the gifts. But when we got the living room he had always left. But we understood he was in a hurry so he couldn't stay, he had a lot of houses to go to. We never noticed Grand-Père was never in the lunch room with us when the noise happened. Until 2009 ! We didn't notice ! Truth !
This year Santa Claus didn't make any noise.
At Christmas we went to see Grand-Père at the Hospital, he wasn't going well at all.
He couldn't eat naturally anymore. He could harldy speak, nor move. He recognised us, but quickly his mind got lost with ghosts he was seeing around and talking to. All the tubes he had were bothering him, he wanted to take them off, which he did, so he got fastened to his bed. He was complaining about the nurses he had to get washed by. Understandable...
One day, before we left, I said to him : we are coming back tomorrow, you will be happy? (stupid question of me)
He said : Of course my little Pauline, seeing you all is all what i have now. and started to cry.
It was one of the most deeply moving minute of my life, not one of, the most.
He remembered my boyfriend was coming from far away
and that it was nice because he would discover France.
I was so impressed he kept this in his fragile and full mind. He was confused about the name, but... understandable !! where the heck people are named Rohan ???
When this Rohan finally came to visit, Grand-Père said in Italian :
Nice to meet you and thanks for visiting.
He also said Rohan was handsome and that we had to make kids :s
Later in the month he asked my mom : Was he black or did i dream it?
Understandable too !! All his nurses were black and he had have been thru
a very hard hallucinatory time.
After days of worsening of his medical situation, the doctors decided they had to do the surgery he needed now or else he wouldn't have survived anyway, because he didn't keep any food in his body.
This surgery was a very important one, with a general anesthesia,
which was a huge risk to take with his level of weakness.
At Christmas we went to see Grand-Père at the Hospital, he wasn't going well at all.
He couldn't eat naturally anymore. He could harldy speak, nor move. He recognised us, but quickly his mind got lost with ghosts he was seeing around and talking to. All the tubes he had were bothering him, he wanted to take them off, which he did, so he got fastened to his bed. He was complaining about the nurses he had to get washed by. Understandable...
One day, before we left, I said to him : we are coming back tomorrow, you will be happy? (stupid question of me)
He said : Of course my little Pauline, seeing you all is all what i have now. and started to cry.
It was one of the most deeply moving minute of my life, not one of, the most.
He remembered my boyfriend was coming from far away
and that it was nice because he would discover France.
I was so impressed he kept this in his fragile and full mind. He was confused about the name, but... understandable !! where the heck people are named Rohan ???
When this Rohan finally came to visit, Grand-Père said in Italian :
Nice to meet you and thanks for visiting.
He also said Rohan was handsome and that we had to make kids :s
Later in the month he asked my mom : Was he black or did i dream it?
Understandable too !! All his nurses were black and he had have been thru
a very hard hallucinatory time.
After days of worsening of his medical situation, the doctors decided they had to do the surgery he needed now or else he wouldn't have survived anyway, because he didn't keep any food in his body.
This surgery was a very important one, with a general anesthesia,
which was a huge risk to take with his level of weakness.
He survived and improved in a very impressive and unexpected manner
in the very next days that followed.
He is now back home, he can eat by himself, make light moves, speak.
He still has Parkinson but he is peacefully home and doesn't suffer anymore of the troubles the tumor he got extracted was giving him. He told my mom that without our support he wouldn't have made it. I'm glad i was able to be there for him and my family for this tough time.
It's now Grand-Mère's turn to hold his hand to go together thru
the last stories they have to share.
He calls her "mon Trésor" (My Treasure).
in the very next days that followed.
He is now back home, he can eat by himself, make light moves, speak.
He still has Parkinson but he is peacefully home and doesn't suffer anymore of the troubles the tumor he got extracted was giving him. He told my mom that without our support he wouldn't have made it. I'm glad i was able to be there for him and my family for this tough time.
It's now Grand-Mère's turn to hold his hand to go together thru
the last stories they have to share.
He calls her "mon Trésor" (My Treasure).
Time, health, love, family are
the most precious things in the world.
the most precious things in the world.
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