COFFEE WITH GRANDPA | Spencer Davimos

Coffee With Grandpa

~Spencer Davimos~

The final car ride to grandpa’s house felt like a funeral procession. The only sound was the air conditioning. Playing music felt disrespectful to my mother, who had already reached the grieving phase. Mom never expressed her emotions through facial expressions. I don’t think I ever saw her raise an eyebrow when my father and I would surprise her with bed and breakfast on mother’s day— not because she wasn’t happy, but because she is better at demonstrating her feelings through her hands. Rather than let out a shriek of joy that day, she stretched out her arms and shook her hands like a Broadway dancer striking her final pose at the end of a musical number. That day, she showed her mourning by anxiously drumming her fingers against the steering wheel and chewing her nails at every stoplight. As we pulled into the driveway, I noticed that the site of his house looked like a graveyard. The plants were either falling over from months without watering, or were ripped from the soil, their roots exposed like veiny arms. A cryptic feeling washed over me, and by her looks, it did Mom, too, who started to go pale in the face.

“Do you want to go in with me?” I asked.

I was hoping she’d say yes, not only because she had gone months without visiting him, but also because I was scared to face him alone. I expected he’d look worse from my most recent visit the week prior, and I would’ve appreciated the company of my Mom, comforting me.

“I’m okay. It’s important you have your alone time with him.”

“I think he’d be happy to see you.”

“I don’t think so. Your grandpa loves you more than anyone else in the family.”

I hated whenever Mom said “my grandpa”. I used to think that purposely not calling him her dad was an underhanded way of rejecting him as a parental figure in her life. “My grandpa” couldn’t reclaim his memory after Alzheimer’s took it from him, just as a paraplegic can’t regain feeling in his legs.

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I decided to let what she said go because I could tell she was struggling to come to terms with the fact that his physical health was sinking. For years, my parents found a way to use uplifting phrases, like, “At least he isn’t in pain” or “Even though his memory’s gone, he still never fails to smile— and that’s all you can wish for someone his age.” As he started to experience both, however, the pep talks were gone. My dad would pat my back before I left the house with Mom. He knew I was too old to be lied to.

“Tell grandpa I say hi and that I love him,” Mom said as I opened the car door.

“I will.”

“I’ll be in soon.”

As she drove away, I walked down the last stretch of the driveway to the graveyard-surrounded house. Mrs. Phillips let me in.

She had been my grandpa’s live-in caretaker for the past year and slept in the guest room on the second story. She was like a teddy bear— kind, affectionate, a little round, and had an infectious laugh. She hugged me when I walked in.

Since the day my mom hired her, Mrs. Phillips has been part of our family. Before we found her, Mom was considering sending grandpa to a nursing home. It wasn’t something we wanted to do, but there were no nurses who were willing to be round-the-clock caretakers. She was our saving grace.

“Hi, pumpkin! How was your week?”

I told her about what happened at school—tests, friends—as we walked to the kitchen. The house had not been renovated for 30 years and had a mix of wallpapers with busy patterns, like a roller skating rink from the 70s. The decor did not reflect the ghostly exterior at all.

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My grandpa was already seated at the round table next to the kitchen. He looked like he had lost 10 more pounds this week, but his frail complexion probably stood out to me more because he was wearing a polo shirt that looked to be an XXL size. He was balding but still had a few white hairs left that congregated at the center of his head.

“I already made you both cups of coffee. There’s some milk and spoons if it’s too strong for you.” Mrs. Phillips said.

“Thank you so much. You really didn’t have to. Next time, I can make it myself.”

“It wasn’t a problem. I’ll leave you two to it.”

Mrs. Phillips left and headed upstairs. She used to make the best biscuits and honey whenever I stopped by, but because of his new feeding tube, Grandpa couldn’t eat them unless they were pureed. I would’ve felt bad eating in front of him and making him feel like he was missing out. Coffee was the one thing the two of us could have together.

“What did you do today?”

This was the question I’d ask him at the start of every conversation we had. Mom used to get angry when I asked him questions back when she joined me on my visits. She’d say asking questions to someone with Alzheimer’s is like asking a blank wall. I’d never get the answer I wanted, which was not one at all.

“It’s okay if you don’t have an answer, it’s a tricky question. Sometimes, I have trouble remembering what I had for breakfast when night rolls around.” I laughed to break the silence. I took a sip of my coffee as he tapped his spoon against the rim of his mug.

“Do you want to know how my day was?”

He didn’t respond and began to slump in his chair, his mouth agape, like he was given news that he had won the lottery, yet he laid emotionless. His pupils were lightening to a gray almost the color of his glassy eyes. Sometimes I’d say to myself that maybe it was better for him to suffer mentally than physically, to avoid suffering the pain of old age. But I knew that he was falling apart on the inside, even if his face didn’t show it.

“I came back from a sleepover at my friend’s house. We were watching my school’s football team’s first game of the season. I’m not sure why. Neither of us knows anything about the sport. But we could tell our team sucked by looking at the scoreboard. We lost 30-3. It was pretty sad.”

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He stretched out his arms and reached for his coffee as though it was on the opposite end for the table, but I moved his hands to where the mug was. Once he got his hand around the handle, he used his empty hand to shoo mine away, like he never needed my assistance in the first place. He traced the letters on the mug with his fingers as they fluttered. He was trying to mouth the words, World’s Best Grandpa, but I’m not sure if he knew what they meant, or if he even knew he was a grandpa— let alone mine.

“Do you know what that means?”

He hovered over the cup and furrowed his brows as his eyes widened, his mouth hanging open, but this time in a show of fascination. I edged closer to him to figure out what was so interesting about a cup of coffee. Maybe he was just trying to keep himself busy while I droned on about stupid football games, but maybe there was something more.

He moved back to let me take a look inside the cup, but all I saw was a rippled reflection of myself. For some reason, I started to cry. I wondered if my grandpa saw me as the twisted reflection through the coffee. But that’s what Alzheimer’s did to him— it took a familiar face and warped it into something unrecognizable, like one of those carnival mirrors.

“You look pretty,” he said. Not just to me, but at me. He said it while looking straight into my reddened and puffy eyes smudged with mascara. I turned on my phone and looked into the camera. I didn’t look like this much of a mess since when my dog died last year.

My nose was running and I looked pale, as if blood had left my face. But despite how I looked, he didn’t tear his eyes away from me, and for the first time ever, I felt like he knew who I was. I lifted my mug to clink his.

“To us,” I said.

We didn’t talk for the rest of the time I was there. Instead, I hummed to the beat he tapped his mug with his spoon.