Grandeedee's Last Stand

I am going to take a chance and tell you something even though Mom says I talk too much. Some things you just can’t keep quiet about and it’s something so scary happened in my house a while ago that I got to tell somebody. We called the police and the fire people and the ambulance and I wanted to call the FBI too but Mom said no. All I got to say is if you got a treasure in your house and it’s worth more than 7900 trillion dollars and something happens to it in the middle of the night you supposed to call Jesus and everybody else too.

Before I tell you about the scariest night ever I just got to ask you if you got a treasure in your house. Just think about it. You could tell me later.

My treasure is named Deidre Delfene Jones but me and my twin brother Douglas call her Grandeedee. My Grandeedee is the best granny in the whole world and she is just about the only one in the whole world my brother talks to beside me. Plus she smell like buttered cinnamon toast and it is me and Douglas job to make sure nothing happen to her ever. She is our treasure and we love her more than 7900 trillion dollars or a 96 story chocolate factory. I’m 8 now and so is my twin and my Grandeedee came to live with us when we was three. She had all kinds of equipment on her body when she came thru that front door but it was so much love in her hugs that me and Douglas refused to leave her sight. Mom let us sleep in the bed at night with her for a good long time and I made me and my brother name tags that said our names and the title Official Treasure Keepers. I’m a good speller but that word official made me have to make the name tags a bunch of times to get them right.

The best day in my whole life was when Mom and Dad brought home Grandeedee from the hospital in Sacramento. We live in a little town called Menlo Park right down the street from Facebook. It’s a whole bunch of big companies close by but now that I am eight years old I got a question for these big companies and for the president and for you too.

How come nobody invented toilets that could fit tall grannies and keep them from falling on the floor in the middle of the night and scaring their whole family to death?

I get so mad when I think about how some things could be better if grownups with brains could use their brains for the right reasons.

Well now that I got that off my chest, back to my story.

That day they brought Grandeedee home she was in a wheel chair but we could see her legs were the longest we had ever seen before. She and my Granddaddy had been in a bad car accident and my Granddaddy was hurt so bad he went to  Heaven to be with Jesus. Me and my twin didn’t understand all the crying at the time but we just cried whenever they did. It’s like when you 3 years old and everybody’s laughing. You don’t understand but you don’t want to be left out so you laugh too. Me and Doug loved Grandeedee’s laughing and crying and hugging and she told stories so good she made us melt to sleep. She was so beautiful and long that me and Doug could sleep beside her on one side of the bed. I laid by her head and Doug cuddled at her feet.

I don’t remember too good about the toilet back then because Mom and Dad took her, but when me and Doug got bigger we learned how to help Grandeedee do everything. She would sometimes tell us early in the morning to hush so we could hear the band of drummers playing inside her knees. She had that grownup teasing kind of look in her eyes but we didn’t care and put our ears close enough to hear. She called it a band but it sounded like those big garbage trucks on pick up day to me.

Sometimes Mama would make us sleep in our own beds but most times Grandeedee would say “Let my sugarplums stay. They my good helpers.” Me and Doug would both grin and cuddle up even closer to the best granny in the whole world.

They made us go to school. I didn’t want to and when I found out they wouldn’t put me and my twin in the same class and they wanted us to stay there ALL DAY too I wanted to

call the police.

I’m going to break Mom’s TMI (too much information) rule just long enough to tell you a little bit about my twin brother Douglas. He needs me or my granny to learn. I knew he wasn’t going to talk to those people. He doesn’t talk to anybody beside me and sometimes I even have to guess what he’s thinking.

Mom said, “Douglas needs to go to school to learn people. He’s already good with tools and making stuff. He just needs to learn people. He’ll be alright.”

I said, “If they won’t put him in my class then put me in his class, Mom. We twins and he needs me.“

I could feel myself getting hot and I knew my voice was getting louder and just as Mom started leaning back I saw my Grandeedee kiss two fingers and then touch my lips

softly but firmly.

That touch made me start crying and I heard myself saying “I’m sorry Mommy. I didn’t mean to yell at you.”

Now that I think about it there was always something to be made right at home or school or downtown or even church… something that seem like somebody with some brains could fix or invent something to make it better.

My Dad, his little helper Doug and a guy from church named Deacon Stamps did everything they could think of to make going to the bathroom easy for my Grandeedee but it was so hard and the doctors and her insurance were no help. After a while Grandeedee didn’t want to go the hospital, church or anywhere else because if she had to go the bathroom it was going to take an army to get her on that toilet and off.

My Daddy’s feelings were a little bit kookie but he just kept trying. Doug wanted Dad to glue the water donut you use at the pool to the toilet to help but it kept busting wide open. Deacon Stamps tried to hang a bar and a rope from the ceiling so she could pull herself up but that didn’t help either.  Every weekend for months those guys would head to the hardware store, build something to try and head back to the garage with

heads hung low.

My Grandeedee would hug and love up on them and thank them over and over again. Before long she would have them laughing and thinking about something else.

We ate dinner outside that night because it was warming up and about to be summer and NO MORE SCHOOL!!!

Deacon Stamps called his family over and we had some good old barbecue chicken and some hot dogs and potato salad and some of my Grandeedee’s best banana pudding milk shakes. We ate and laughed and played my twin brother Doug’s favorite game called Charades. Since he don’t talk anyhow he always wins and it is always big fun for everybody.

We went to bed smiling and full that night. Couldn’t nobody say who was snoring because everybody was knocked out cold. Sometime in the wee hours of the night we heard a loud crash from Grandeedee’s room that had us all up and running. We got to her room and there she was laid out cold on the bathroom floor with one hand around the toilet and a puddle of pee right there by her feet.

My Mom dialed 911 and me and Doug were crying our eyes out. We didn’t know if she was alive or dead. Daddy was grabbing blankets and towels and trying to wake her up but she wouldn’t come to.

Those paramedics burst in with that bed on wheels and put that thingamajig over her face to make her breathe. They scooted us out so they could help and just as we were leaving one of them hollered “Hot diggety… gimme some towels or a bucket or something…this lady peeing oceans.”

And I heard my Mama say an almost cuss word, “Dang Mama” and from what I could see my Grandeedee was letting go of all the pee she had been holding back on for months. She was just letting herself let go and pee was everywhere and my Grandeedee had this look on her face that could only be described as AT LAST!

That’s all I could think of to call that look. AT LAST!

It’s one thing though. This time Grandeedee, my forever and ever treasure didn’t smell like buttered cinnamon toast.