Skydiving at 90

The Super Bowl is in less than 48 hours.

Her 90th birthday is in less than 5.

My grandma will be watching the bowl and watching us on her birthday....for signs that we’ll let her go sky diving.

When I was little and visited her condo in Florida, she’d yell at the football games on TV saying, “Hold another sec before you throw, Hicks! You gotta block better, Jarvis! Coach Lewis, you gotta run your defense harder!”

I don’t remember what teams we’d watch. She liked them all. Especially college.

I don’t remember the player’s names either, so for the sake of the blog I tried to come up with general football type last names by thinking back to high school. But when I finally gained access to the file in my brain labeled, “Football player names from High School,” it was clear to me from all the blanks, that I only attended the half time shows…usually as the fourth color guard girl on the left. Plus, how could I spend my time learning football names when there was a tenor sax player who made the most hilarious woodwind puns, won every jazz competition, and was revered by everyone in marching band for failing French and not caring.

My grandma plays softball and golf and was doing so in the 30’s and 40’s when women weren’t really doing that. She also learned to pay her bills online before most of the world and can wear a 30-year-old swishy neon tracksuit so well, the 80’s was spotted on route 66 attempting to hitch a ride back to the future. My grandma’s real name is Lucille but she didn’t like it and in school made it clear that she would be going by her last name – Becker – which got shortened to Becky. She’s a people person. Not a social butterfly, but a doer, which usually attracts other fun loving doers. She loves the theatre but not discussing it and was always more concerned about where we were going for ice cream after the fifteen plus shows she flew from Florida to see me in during Middle School, High School, College, and now the middle school shows I direct in South LA. She did not play with us as kids, but chose to give my sister and I experiences instead, taking us overseas, to the Rose Bowl, and on my first roller coaster. She was and still is the tomboy who declared, “I’m wearing pants to your wedding, hope you’re good with that.” Her only brother died in World War II and her youngest son would later die in a different kind of war. Against cells multiplying too fast in his brain. Her husband also lost a war with a spontaneous lump of blood cells that got stuck.

It’s true to say my grandma has shown resilience through serious tragedy. It would also be true to say she’s had a few things handed to her and she’s also never had to work a job outside of raising her four kids. I’ve never seen her as having money because she doesn’t store her wealth in material things, but in people. My grandfather, Don, was the business consultant for the guys who sold the first “make multiple hamburger’s at once” machine to McDonalds. This didn’t make my grandparents ga-zillionares, but it allowed for tons of trips all over the world and a second place to live in the summer. It also allowed for them to give to charity – particularly the migrant farm workers they’d visit in central Florida.

My mom, sister, and Uncles flew to see Grandma and Bob (her new husband of two years) for her birthday. Bob is legally blind and also pretty much the best.

Right now, my mom and sister and I are staying up late, in a quandary about how to deal with Grandma’s strong desire to sky dive tomorrow morning before her big party at 1:30pm downstairs at St. Mark’s Village lobby (a cool college dorm for old people without tests and study and with much better food). I weigh the pros and cons by playing out the following imaginary conversation in my head.

Grandma. Okay.

First of all? No. You’re 90. You can’t sky dive because the wind might break your bones, let alone the landing, let alone your heart, let alone, let alone, let alone. Also, you’ve gotten to do a lot of cool bucket list things in your life already. Road trip all over Europe with your kids, take your grandkids to Israel, go on a tons of trips with Grandpa to Africa and China and Australia and Japan and Spain and you name it – you’ve been there.

On the other hand, yeah. We get it. You’re 90 and you kinda get to do what you want. You’re 90 and maybe telling everyone at the dining area this morning that you were going to jump out of a plane, is your way of spicing up life and being the popular kid at St. Mark’s. Or, maybe you’re feeling 90 like a tap on the shoulder – a cold tap or just a hurried tap – and you want to stave it off by doing things people usually do for their 21st birthday. Maybe jumping out of a plane is your way of wanting to time travel back to 21. I mean crazier things have happened. Trump for example. And you’re starting to loose your short term memory and you’re at that stage where you KNOW that this is happening to you and it makes you frustrated. Loss of clarity happens to me since I’ve been teaching 7th graders – I can’t imagine what adding 60 more decades to my life would do to my brain. All this makes me feel bad and so want you to be able to go dive in the sky…

But Grandma, listen. Couldn’t we replace skydiving with something lower to the ground? Like walking fast? Or standing in front of a fan? I also have a mother (your daughter) to think about and she is super stressed by this want you have to fling yourself out of a plane. So are your two sons who traveled far to be with you on your birthday. Burying you on your 90th birthday was not part of the deal – only cake was.

 Where does dignity start and sanity end and vise versa? I want to give you the dignity of calling the sky dive place, but I also want the sanity of calling them before you call them to say, “Don’t tell a 90 year old named Becky who is newly married to an 88 year old named Bob, that she’s allowed to jump out of a moving plane.”

I know you’re tough.

I know you’re a tomboy.

I know you’ve done gutsy progressive activities since you were young. Repeat bowling champion is one of them – yes, yes, I’m sorry I didn’t mention that sooner. I know you’re a bit of a rebel and have a mix of having gotten what you wanted a lot in life, layered with deep sorrow.

 So…if it were just you and me…maybe I’d take you. But I gotta tell you grandma – heights freak me the fuck out and I’d rather choose sugary cake carbs for your special day. (sugary carbs beat out any food/non-food option in general except salty carbs).

*** 

The next morning, Grandma was all about the Falcons and the Patriots and the Super Bowl. You know. Jarvis and Hicks and all those helmet wearing names. I smiled to myself, remembering that my grandma liked going by her last name too; dropping Lucille like Jarvis would a tutu. Fortunately partying and football consumed her action-loving mind. Or was it that she accepted she can’t up and go on wild trips anymore and she let the sky diving slip away on purpose? As a group, we were left feeling relieved but I also felt a little sad that she dropped the idea. And also a little reverent towards this 90-year-old badass who was about to start yelling at the TV screen correcting the football players and coaches.