I remember my most recent visit to my grandmother’s house like it was yesterday rather than six years ago. My grandma’s health had deteriorated to the point that she could no longer live on her own in the large house she had lived in for her entire life. Being that it was winter break and we were off of school for two weeks, my family decided to visit her and help her move to an assisted living apartment.
My family and I spent a few days before school let out packing up our truck and suitcases and preparing for our trip. The first day of break, we woke up at seven in the morning so my brother and our step dad could get the camper shell on the back of the truck. We loaded everything up, grabbed several blankets, and set off on our six hour drive, my siblings and I sitting in the back of the truck under the camper shell. Let me tell you, that was interesting, to say the least. And cold. Very cold. We each had four blankets, so we were bundled up for warmth, and we had each other for conversation or our Game Boys for entertainment- or, in my case, a good book- so we were never bored. We had snacks, so we weren’t hungry. All in all, we had a good time riding in the back of the truck like that. It’s part of what made it so memorable.
My siblings and I spent the first few hours talking about absolutely nothing in particular. It was the first time in a long while we were all in the same place at the same time for so long without fighting- we are all a year apart, my brother is the oldest at 24 (18 at the time), my sister is next at 23 (she was 17), and I am the youngest at 21 (I was 15 at the time)- and we were actually getting along and enjoying the time together. Eventually though, we all faded and silence reigned supreme. My brother went first, retreating into his game after a few hours. Then my sister, staring out the window in her own world, before dozing off. I read for a while, but long car rides are the bane of all kids and most teens, and eventually we all fell asleep.
We woke early the next morning in an unfamiliar city, but still in the truck. Our step dad had pulled into a gas station and we were stopped, so I got out to ask where we were, only to be informed that we had gotten lost. My step dad prefers to take back roads rather than stay on highways or interstates and we had missed our turn and had to try and find our way back. We got an atlas, found our route, and were back on our way in no time. Luckily we hadn’t gone too far off track, so we made it to my grandma’s old house after only another hour of driving.
My aunt was there waiting for us, and we spent the next day packing up the remainder of my grandma’s things and packing them into a U-Haul. Late that night, we hit the road again to go to my grandma’s new home three hours away, arriving in the wee hours of the morning. It had snowed while my siblings and I slept, so we awoke to a blanket of white covering the world. We trudged through the snow and unloaded my grandma’s things in a matter of hours, not wanting to stay out in the cold much longer than we had to.
It had been years since I had last seen my grandmother. Because she lived so far away, we rarely had much opportunity to visit. The first thing I noticed was that my grandma was in a wheel chair. That didn’t surprise me very much, as she was in her eighties at the time and had always had trouble walking. What did surprise me was the fact that both of my grandmother’s legs had been amputated above the knee. She hadn’t told my mom when it happened because, to her, it wasn’t that big of a deal. My mom cried when she first walked through the door and saw Grandma sitting there waiting for us. They talked for hours while the rest of us carried stuff in and helped unpack and sort and put everything away. We didn’t mind though, if I had been separated from my mom for that long I would want the opportunity to spend as much time with her as I could.
We spent that night at a hotel and woke up early again the next morning to spend more time with Grandma. Yeah, I know, sounds so boring and uneventful. That’s what I thought too. We ate breakfast at the hotel and went straight to Grandma’s new apartment. While we were going through things and unpacking the stuff for the living room, my sister and I looked out the window for a second at the trees outside and we noticed movement at the base of the tree trunks. A closer look revealed a family of rabbits. Of course, being girls, we wanted to feed them. Grandma let us get some lettuce out of the fridge and we went outside to feed the rabbits. As we hit the door, another resident of the building spotted us and started yelling at us for not being escorted by an adult. She steered us forcefully back to our grandma’s apartment and started berating our parents for letting us roam the halls. So my step dad took the lettuce from us, marched outside and fed the rabbits himself, much to the annoyance of the other woman.
From that moment on, that woman watched us like a hawk. If we so much as put a toe outside Grandma’s apartment she was on us demanding to know what we were doing or where we were going. And it was like that until we finally left. We spent the better part of a week with my grandma just talking and catching up. The trip home was just as uneventful as the trip there, but thankfully we did not get lost on the way back. We got home just after midnight and slept in very late the next morning.
Most people would think that this vacation was boring, that nothing happened to make it memorable at all. I have not seen my grandmother in six years. I remember this last visit so well because it was the first time in a long while that I had an actual conversation with my brother and sister. We had so much fun on the drive there and back, and we spent so much time with our family. I don’t think I will ever forget that Christmas vacation.