When I was about 9 years old, my paternal grandma moved into a nursing home. She would have been about 80 years old when this happened and beginning to fail in health and mobility. It was mostly her decision to be placed there so that she “wouldn’t be a burden on family.” Who knew this would be the setup to one of my deep childhood traumas?

As luck would have it, the town’s nursing home was within a short walking distance to my house. I imagined myself going there and visiting with my grandma. She was the only grandma I had left and I wanted to have that grandmother-granddaughter bond I had heard so much about from others. It was quite a lovely thought. My maternal grandma had passed away before she could meet any of her grandchildren so my hope of having any grandma memories rested on my paternal grandma. Of course I was going to visit her!

Sunday evenings were designated as unofficial ‘visit the grandparents’ day in my home. My mom would troop us to visit her dad and his wife which was uncomfortable to say the least. It did not produce any of the warm fuzzy grandma moments I longed for. In fact, I recall those visits and that whole relationship as prickly rather than fuzzy. While visiting, we weren’t allowed to move, touch, or pretty much breathe. While I can’t prove it, I swear some of those evening visits lasted eons. But mom felt it was important to keep that connection and she tried her best even though the efforts were terribly one-sided.

We also visited my widowed paternal grandma now in the nursing home just a couple blocks up from my house. There was a time when this grandma was in better health when the visits were pretty much the opposite of what I described with mom’s family. But time caught up with her and she moved to the nursing home.

One Sunday, and I can’t remember why, my parents went without me. But no matter! I could still catch up. I ran up the street and over a couple of blocks to join them on their visit with grandma.

However, once inside the building, one of the residents who was in a wheelchair grabbed onto me and wouldn’t let me go. I couldn’t understand what he was saying but I could tell he was in distress. It might even be possible he was asking for help. I couldn’t understand him through the sheer panic that quickly sped up my heartbeat. I didn’t really comprehend what was going on because I focused on my own uncomfortableness.

Across the way, sitting at the dining tables was a group of nursing home staff. The way I remember this story is they were laughing at my panic. Now, it could be they didn’t notice what was going on and were just laughing and talking amongst themselves. But how I felt it went down is they were watching the scene unfold and laughing at me. And not rushing over to help.

At this point, who knows what really happened?

But I felt panic for being being held onto by this poor man and I felt embarrassment for being laughed at. If I was a bit more mature, I could have been a little kinder to this resident and tried to get him some help. There are a lot of things I could have done differently. But I wasn’t mature enough to do any of that at that time. Once I broke free (a nurse may have come over to help but I don’t remember that part) I think I ran back home instead of visiting my grandma. Really, I don’t remember that part. All I can recall is being held onto by this poor gentleman and being laughed at.

After that, I never went to the nursing home alone. I would go only if someone was with me. I made sure I was never out of sight of whoever I was with. Which means I lost a lot of one-on-one time with my grandma in the last 3 years of her life. Granted, she wasn’t in the best condition to bond with me but I neglected any opportunity to spend time with her all because of fear. Of which, I regret even though I know why. Let me make it clear, I forgive myself for not going over because I did the best I could at the time. I understand that I wasn’t mature enough to act differently and time gives us perspective and teaches us what could have been if the situation presents itself again. But that doesn’t change the fact we still lost time together and that is what I regret.

Because I felt I had done something terribly embarrassing, I never brought it up with anyone until much later when it was too late.

After she passed away, I didn’t go into another nursing home until I was an adult. I pretty much was able to avoid them. Until I was serving a mission and one of the members lived in a nursing home. When we would visit, I would feel panicky and a little sick. I blamed it on the smell but I knew it stemmed from that incident at grandma’s nursing home. Logically, I knew the same situation wouldn’t happen again and if something similar did happen, I could handle it better. But I still didn’t like going inside.

To this day, I’m still a bit wary of visiting nursing homes. If I do have to go for some reason, I still try to make sure I don’t go alone as silly as that sounds.

I hope that whole video watching of our life thing is real because as painful as this memory is I’d like to be able to watch it. Maybe then I will be able to see what really happened and perhaps let it go completely. Of course, I’d like to watch it with my grandma so that she could do her grandmotherly thing and comfort me and let me know “it’s okay.” And then give me one of those great grandmotherly hugs that I’m looking forward to receiving.