I was waiting for you on the front steps. It was already noon, and I knew the time you usually returned home. I saw you approaching—slow, unhurried, in a white blouse and a black pleated skirt. Despite your age, you were impeccably groomed. Your hair was set in a perm at the salon, your blush carefully applied, high heels on your feet, earrings and bracelets completing the look. I ran into your arms, and you dropped the flowerpots—huge, in my eyes—and bent down to caress me.
From that moment on, I knew we would spend the day together. At midday, you would take me to your bed and, to lull me to sleep, tell me stories from your life, embroidered with imagination. Other times, you explained the world with your own simple logic.
“God turned on His taps, and that’s why it rains,” you would say. “You see how He has made everything…”
In the summers, you took me to the sea by city bus. You bought me loukoumades* and let me splash beside you in the shallows—you never learned how to swim. You paid passing photographers to take our picture. I still have those photographs.
In the evenings, we went to the square. You bought me ice cream and roasted corn. I held your hand and pulled you toward the fountain to set my little boat afloat. When the string slipped from my fingers, you would stir up the whole crowd until someone helped retrieve it. Then we would sit on a bench, and you would sing softly to me.
“My George, I’m leaving, I’m going abroad, they’re marrying me off for money. I don’t want dollars—how can I tell you…”
On August 15th, you took me to the monastery of the Virgin Mary, and each time you told me about the vow you had made when your son was badly burned as a small child.
“Then Kyra Loutsia sent my mother up into the mountain to find a herb. It was our only hope—the doctors had already given up on him.
‘Place your hand upon him, my Panagia, and save him,’ I prayed, ‘and for the rest of my life, I will bring you a candle as tall as he is, on your feast day…’”
You loved traveling and always took me with you. We would board the intercity bus and visit villages, relatives, old friends. You beamed when they told you how much I had grown. Everywhere we went, you fed me endlessly.
“Eat, eat more,” you would say.
And when we returned home, you brought me yogurt in plastic bags, chocolates, and Mickey Mouse comics so I could learn to read.
“Make sure you learn your letters,” you told me. “We worked from a young age—we didn’t have that chance.”
On Sundays, I went with you to church. We always sat in the front rows, and at the end, you led me by the hand to receive communion.
You were endlessly patient with me. Even when I scribbled all over the living room walls with a pen, you said calmly,
“He’s a child—he just wants to play.”
And when my mother decided to send me to kindergarten, you asked her,
“But will they feed the child there?”
Every time you left the house, you took care with your appearance. You painted your nails, put on makeup, changed clothes and jewelry. My mother disagreed.
“You’re getting old now,” she would say. “What do you need all this for?”
And you would straighten your back and reply, almost playfully,
“My girl, I will never grow old.”
Years passed. When my own family came back together, we moved far away, to another city. I counted the days until school ended so we could return and be with you again.
And we did—only now there were more grandchildren, your son’s children. You had so many of us to care for, to love, to gather around you.
More years passed. You grew older. You began to neglect yourself. Each time I saw you, you seemed more changed.
“How did you let yourself go like this?” I asked.
“Leave it, my child,” you said. “Life’s hardships wore me down.”
And they had. I just wasn’t old enough yet to understand.
At some point, you gave up the house in exchange for apartments in a new building.
“I have two children,” you said. “I must divide it between them. Besides, I’ve grown old. What do I need such a big house for?”
I visited it before it was demolished. I walked through the rooms and cried. It wasn’t mine, but it was the house where I had grown up.
Later, I helped you settle into your new home. We stood on the terrace.
“We used to have a vine here,” I said.
We went down to the courtyard.
“And here, we had our banana tree.”
You sighed.
“Leave it,” you said. “Those things are gone now.”
One day, you called me. You told me about an icon in your house—Christ was opening and closing His eyes, speaking to you. I was frightened. I came and took you to the doctors. You followed me without protest.
Dementia, they said.
They gave you medication, but you never really took it. You never trusted medicine.
Time passed. You began to quarrel with neighbors—next door, across the street, with strangers. One wanted to take your house, another kept you awake at night, a third threw things onto your balcony.
Now you can no longer take care of yourself. Sometimes you don’t recognize any of us. You shout, you see things that aren’t there. Your soul is like a frightened bird, fluttering wildly.
I sit beside you, hold your hand, and speak softly, trying to pull you away from what you see. I don’t always succeed.
It hurts to see you like this.
I search for the woman I knew—the elegant one, with the bright eyes and sharp mind. The one who remembered everything, who would cross the city to find something she needed. The grandmother who gave freely, who gave everything.
I know she cannot come back.
And I know you have already set out on a journey from which there is no return…
Loukoumades: Traditional Greek honey puffs.
