Notes on grandma

Grandma is six years older than when I last saw her, but what I gather must be a bigger difference than not just six years but any unit of time is how she is now alone. What Grandma would say to this I am not sure. I can't even tell if she experiences loneliness. Ever since childhood I've noticed that she's resistant to any negative emotion, in a weird, vaguely magical way, like the sight of water on new Goretex. She simply does not engage with negativity. I can't recall ever seeing her in a bad mood, or even in a room during someone else's bad mood. In fact, what I can recall is a childhood memory of crying (for some useless reason) and seeing her float out of the room. I was left almost certain that she had noticed me but pretended not to. So there it is. I have reason to believe that she simply dissolves upon the influence of anything that is not moving "onward and upward", her only direction.

I am of two minds about this. To take the childhood example, it was partly admirable that she let me do as I did, cry, and thought better than to make a fuss; partly upsetting to think she'd pretend anything. Even if she truly failed to notice me, the situation is not exempt from being strange, because how could she not notice something so obvious? (I was most likely wailing, as one does).

Her solid and steady sense has always stunned me, and stuns me even more now, as while much of the world around her seems to be stripped of meaning--names, dates, and even threads of thought have abandoned her--the "OK!" ethos remains intact. Before I arrived she set up her assembly of wooden Christmas-themed figurines. They are all in position, with baby Jesus in the center, and musicians and miscellaneous revelers facing him on either side (picture below). If there was ever any doubt: that is the real Ruth. She really has continued to go onward and upward. It really is OK! 

The rift in our personalities is helpful; being intrigued and confused has distanced me from feeling sad, which in turn makes me the kind of company that I'd like to think she prefers, or at least more similar to the company she's given me. In other words, neither of us will shed a tear this Christmas.