As often as I think of her, you’d assume Hazel was a dear friend, but I barely knew her.
She was my grandmother’s constant companion in the nursing home in Lawrenceville. Together they sat in the hallways and at a dining room table for every meal, sharing silence in lieu of conversation. Before the onset of dementia, Grandma was the most talkative, lively woman in any room. A spark. I don’t think she’d noticed how illness had chipped away at her chattiness. And it annoyed her that Hazel was so quiet.
“She don’t talk none,” Grandma would say while Hazel sat beside us. I’d nod and bulge my eyes, hoping Grandma would understand my cue of concern for Hazel’s feelings. If it did bother Hazel, you’d never know.
I loved taking my children to visit my grandparents. It’s something I had looked forward to since I was a little girl. I began preparing for motherhood around age 5, naming my baby dolls, imagining all the different gender combos I might have, and fervently praying my grandparents would live to hold all my children.
My grandparents were the best of everything — the best couple, parents, friends, entertainers. I’ll never know a better man than my grandfather, Mac Hughes, and I’ll never want to be more like anyone than my grandmother, Peggy Hughes. She was as Southern as buttermilk cornbread, feminine, anything but demure, effortlessly entertaining and beautiful. I craved her presence through every phase of my life, no more so than when I became a mother. Seeing her cradle each of my baby boys was the realization of a deeply seated dream.
Credit: handout
Credit: handout
In 2017, after my third son was born, I frequently buckled my boys into their car seats and headed to the nursing home to visit Grandma. (Grandaddy joined her there a couple years later.) I always stopped during my drive to buy Grandma a fountain Diet Coke, her favorite. How tickled I was, walking through the nursing home doors, flanked by two boys with the third, plump and pert, on my hip. For as long as I live, these are the days I’ll recall as my happiest.
I’d find Grandma, usually nodding off in the hallway, and usher her to a spot where we could visit privately. As if their wheelchairs were linked train cars, Hazel would fall in line behind Grandma. After a few visits I began to wonder, was Hazel following Grandma, or was she following my children? It was the boys, after all, who she watched the entirety of each visit. And it was the boys who conjured the only smiles that spread across her ivory face.
As kids can be, my middle child would clam up at attention from strangers, especially at the nursing home. Sometimes the residents reached for the boys as we passed in the hallways. That environment can be intimidating to many kids, but not my oldest son, Max. For him, the nursing home was social hour, where he delighted in the chorus of greetings and weathered smiles.
During one visit, we were chatting with Grandma before dinnertime. The residents were gathering, and my kids stuck out like ice cream on a salad bar. Multiple pairs of bespectacled eyes were on them, and Max reveled in the attention. Unabashed, he walked from senior to senior, throwing out his buoyant “hellos” like confetti, little gifts the residents were overjoyed to receive. It is Hazel’s expression I remember most. That was the first time I saw her lips part, revealing her teeth, and the crinkles in the corners of her eyes.
One day we were visiting Grandma (and Hazel) in the nursing home’s TV room where there was space to spread out. My big boys walked figure eights around the ladies’ wheelchairs, and my youngest, 7 months old at the time, was in Grandma’s arms. Grandma gazed and cooed at him affectionately, while Hazel watched with a smile on her face and a baby in her arms. Yes, Hazel had a baby — a baby doll. Grandma commented on it a few times, winding a finger at her temple to imply Hazel was cuckoo. Dementia was no match against Grandma’s wit.
It seemed Hazel saw no difference between her plastic-faced baby and the chubby, squirmy guy in Grandma’s embrace. Hazel sat the doll on her knees and bounced it as though a play date had commenced. I played into the scenario while Grandma, God love her, looked like a shaken can of her beloved Diet Coke, laughter bubbling out as she told her great-grandson to say hello to the baby doll. Truth be known, my baby was enthralled.
On subsequent visits, it became common to see the baby doll swaddled in a blanket, resting in the nook of Hazel’s arm as she perched in the hallway. I always found humor in the sight, but I also wondered if I was getting a glimpse into my future.
Credit: Michele Zakeri
Credit: Michele Zakeri
I’m sad to say my baby years are over. I always wanted three children, but, after I had my third, I vividly remember the feeling of maybe we’re not done, even though my husband lovingly informed me that, yes, we were definitely done. I felt fulfilled, so very fortunate and in love with my three, absolutely, but I felt I could keep going, that I had the capacity to love more, biological, or not. Those thoughts and hopes withered when our precious Max died in fall 2017 at just 6 years old. He had a catastrophic stroke a day after undergoing heart surgery to repair a congenital anomaly. When his life on earth ended, innumerable dreams went with him. While there’s a spot in my heart that may always long for more babies, a bigger family — what I want most is Max, for our life to carry on as it should have, with him at the helm of my little trio.
My sons are everything precious and wild that mothers have spoken of for centuries. Together we’re carrying on a tradition of love and belonging, a language both spoken and unspoken, that mothers and children intrinsically understand. It’s the greatest privilege of my life. Not a day passes when I don’t think about how, for this blink of time, they’re all mine (and, sure, my husband’s, too).
These boys, who’ve thrown themselves to the ground because their Lego tower collapsed, who surprise me with bouquets of tiny, handpicked flowers — they are light in the darkness. These boys, who drop trou anywhere (anywhere) when they “gotta go,” who light up as jumbly, mispronounced words spill out of their mouths — they belong to me. I am so grateful. They need me to rub their bellies, wipe their tears, noses and bottoms, tie their shoes. They run to me when they’re happy, sad and everything in between. “Watch me,” they say, “Please lay with me,” “I did it all by myself,” “I love you with my whole heart.” I’m the girl in their lives, the one who puts the Band-Aids on their knees, the one they seek every time she leaves the room to pee, and the one they pray with every night. Our bond is sacred, eternal. These are my little kid years. I cherish these days and know one day I will miss them desperately.
I wonder if Hazel knew this kind of love. Did she nurture sweet babies? Did she watch them grow into adults? Did she become a grandmother? And her baby in the nursing home — I wonder if it had a name. Was it the baby she always dreamed of having? Was it the baby she lost long ago? I wonder and I wish I had asked.
Hazel died in early 2019. Grandma never mentioned her again, but a caregiver said she saw Grandma looking for her friend in the hallways and in the dining room. I know Grandma missed Hazel’s presence. I did, too.
Credit: handout
Credit: handout
When Grandma died the following year, I doubled over and wept. Just as when I lost Max, I thought, I will never love anyone like I loved her. No one will ever love me the way she loved me. But then — a surprise. Unlike when I lost Max, when I lost Grandma, the pain was eclipsed by peace. I kept thinking about Grandma’s life, long and colorful, and felt comforted by the thought of her with Max. My glorious grandmother, holding my beloved son.
When my nursing home days come, I hope I’m like Grandma. Though I’d never expect to be as beautiful, I hope I keep my humor. I hope people gravitate toward me, and I hope I have grandchildren who yearn to keep me company. But I also hope to be like Hazel, with a baby doll, or three, or five, nestled in my lap. People may look twice when they see me. Maybe my children or grandchildren will be forced to suppress their giggles, but it won’t bother me, of that I’m sure. I’m a mama with arms made for children. Age won’t change that. So please, if you see me in my wheelchair one day and wonder if my swaddled baby dolls have names, just ask. I promise you they will.
Keri Janton is a professional writer and director of the Maximus Janton Foundation, a non-profit that serves the special needs community in memory of her son, Max. She lives in Sugar Hill with her husband Dan and sons, Duke and Beau. To learn more about Max, read Janton’s Personal Journey “Maximus the Great.”
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