my memory keeper

My grandma cannot remember what she ate for lunch, but she can remember that time she took me and my sister on vacation in her camping bus and we looked like skeletons in our bikinis. She can remember that day we kids thought it was a fun idea to put a plastic bag over the head of one of my cousins and make him run after us. She can remember that I used to love grape juice. She can remember the day she made me finish my glass of grape juice and it was my grandfather’s wine. She can remember all these fun memories of my childhood that I would not remember had she not told them to me over and over. Those memories keep us bonded. She is my memory keeper.
I think us grandchildren brightened up her life. She had it tough. She tried to cope with it the best she could, but she struggled. To this day, she struggles. It wasn’t easy being born in 1927 with a father that drank and mistreated her and her mom. It wasn’t easy to have to try to get dressed with the 2 francs that her father left her after she turned in her paycheck. It wasn’t freedom to have to get married to be able to get out of the house. It wasn’t as she had wanted it to divorce, work full time and raise 2 kids in the fifties. It wasn’t what she had planed to remarry to a violent drunk and to raise a third child dodging the blows. So finally, when life eased up a bit, she met a nice man, grandchildren spent a few weeks a year in her camping car or came on weekends at the small river cabin, life was a party. And she drank to it!
She is always so proud of how I go places; how I travel; how I earn a good living and how I’m not married!!! She wishes she was born when I was. She wishes she had the opportunities that I have. She reminds me to be thankful.
She is my memory keeper. Yet she is losing hers. And little by little, she is leaving us.
Nowadays, every time I go home, she says goodbye to me like it’s the last time we’ll ever see each other. She looks in my eyes and they tell me how much she loves me. She squeezes my hand and her eyes get teary. She waves until I’m completely out of sight and probably a little longer too.
She is declining by the week. A few days ago she fell and that put another rush into her aging.
Soon she will be leaving for good and taking all these happy childhood memories with her. I wish I could be there holding her hand when she checks out.
Gosh I will miss my mémé.