We would drive. Never fly.  Though my parents both came from the airline industry this was just the way it was.  We would get in our 1988 Ford Econoline van with the maroon and white stripes and drive.

The trip took 2 days.  It was from Texas to Minnesota.  He was from the Midwest.  I was the only child, so I spent the entire drive reading books, silently.  It was not a scenic drive.  They rarely talked to me, per usual.  It was always about them.  My only friends were books.

This was 1990-1991.  I was 10-11 years old.  She was born in the 1890s.  She was about to be 100 years old.  Because she was a resident of Minnesota the state paid for her full time nursing home care.  Minnesota pays for all nursing home care for the elderly.

He was my stepfather. This was his mother. Because my mom had only recently married him I didn’t know his mother, who could have potentially been a (step) grandmother, though she never was.  I don’t even think she knew who I was really, the context lost on her.  Her mind was perfectly in tact, that’s not what I’m saying.  She knew everything that was happening.  So much so that it seemed to always get her down.

We would step into the nursing home, and she would be wheeled out to the waiting room to greet us. My stepfather would always introduce us, and she would nod but never give a shit.  I don’t think she ever knew my name, nor cared, even though I was there, sitting in her nursing home in Rodchester, Minnesota with my books and coloring books, age 9-10.  I never remember her speaking directly  to me.

What I did very distinctly remember her saying, over and over and over again, was that she just wanted to die.  She would just sit there, and my stepfather would try to make small talk, and she would get annoyed, and say “Oh why can’t I just DIE!!”.  She didn’t have cancer or any chronic disease or pain, she was just unhappy, probably bored, and ready to die.  Every time she would say such my step father would laugh it off, try to lighen the mood. It never worked.  She would continue to repeat how she just wanted to be dead.  We would sit there, doing our “duty” of visiting her, while she just kept saying over and over how she just wanted to die.

We went back at least 2 more times.  One time we bought homemade rhubarb jelly from a roadside stand. We also visited Mall Of America and I bought some shirts about saving the animals.  We stopped by her nursing home too while in the great state of Minnesota, where she was wheeled out in her wheelchair and spent the whole time complaining about how she wanted to just be dead.  We would then leave, and make the 27 hour drive back to Texas.

A few years later my step father, her son, would die of cancer at the age of 57, after a short illness.  I was then 15 years old.  His mother was still up in the nursing home in Minnesota, still alive, having lived passed the age of 100.  I’m not sure if she ever knew he died.  I don’t know if anybody bothered to inform her.  She did indeed eventually die, just a few months after him.