I Was Just Resting My Eyes

As my dear little Gram got older, we started to do something we ended up really loving. We would both lay down on her bed and watch t.v. programs or put movies in the VCR. It was relaxed and fun. I remember coming home from work one evening and asking what she had going on the telly. "I'm watching Er," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "What?" "I am watching Er, you know, the show with all of the doctors and nurses." "Oh," I said, "You mean ER." "That's what I said! It's spelled E.R. That's Er. I'm watching Er." It took me a while to figure out that there was no winning this one, so I finally gave in to the Grandma-speak. So she watched a show called Er. Big deal.

We spent many evenings or parts of my days off enjoying t.v. together laying on that bed. Sometimes one of us didn't feel that great, but we would still have our time together, her dog Maggie curled up between us. On one memorable occasion we were eating some candies that looked hard but were kind of fluffy, you know, the ones that melt in your mouth pretty quickly. She just had to give Maggie a bit of that butterscotch flavored candy. I had a perfect view of what followed. Like most canines, when she realized she didn't like it, she spat it out. And it landed on the sleeve of Gram's blouse. When the dog looked at it like she was thinking, "Wow, did I do that?" I just lost it. Gram's eyes grew wide. What was so funny? "She spit it ooouuuuuttt!" When Gram realized that she had candy glued to her sleeve, it made her hysterical too, so we were a matched set of laughing, crying, slap-happy women.

When I put a movie in the VCR, or in fact when we were just watching programs, she would often doze off. It was a bit more than a dozing off on many occasions, and her creative snoring sometimes got the best of me. I'd lie there, laughing heartily but silently, hoping that the shaking of the bed wouldn't wake her up. After I regained my composure, I would stop the film or turn off the television. Her eyes would fly open, shooting angry sparks at me. "Why did you turn that off? I was watching it!" "But Gram, you were asleep!" "I was not! I was just resting my eyes!" I'd start the program again, and in a few minutes her eyes would droop and the symphony would begin. Once again, I would switch it off, and the sparks would fly. I would ask, "Well, then, what's going on in the movie?" She'd try to bluff. "Well, some stuff happened and the guy was going somewhere." She would start to laugh, having to admit to herself that she had been asleep. We could always pick up where we left off on another night.

Sometimes it took several days to get through a movie, but I didn't mind. I usually watched it on another television in the house, so I wasn't missing out on anything. It was all about enjoying the time together. And I was getting some extra entertainment to boot! Nowadays, Trent or I will sometimes drift away while the t.v. is on. I guess the same malady ran in his family as in mine, because we don't necessarily fall asleep. We're just resting our eyes.