Orla
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT
Children do not usually know adults by their first names.
They know them by what they are.
Mom.
Dad.
Grandma.
Grandpa.
As a child, it never occurred to me that those people had lives before I knew them.
They seemed permanent.
As though they had always existed exactly as I found them.
To me, she was Grandma Stanley.
Not Orla.
Not a young woman.
Not the mother who raised three children.
Just Grandma Stanley.
She lived only a few blocks away from us in Benton Harbor.
Every Christmas we would pile into the car and go visit.
I wish I could tell you stories about opening presents at Grandma's house.
I wish I could tell you stories about baking cookies together.
The truth is, I can't.
What I remember most is stale candy.
It sounds strange to say now.
But childhood memories often attach themselves to small things.
A smell.
A room.
A chair.
A bowl of candy that always seemed to have been sitting there forever.
I also remember a little silver tabletop Christmas tree.
Not much bigger than a lamp.
For some reason that tree stayed with me.
No great adventures.
No dramatic stories.
Just Grandma Stanley.
Stale candy.
And a tiny silver Christmas tree.
For years, I thought that was all I knew about her.
Looking back, I realize that wasn't really true.
It was simply the part of her story that I happened to see.
Orla had three children.
My Uncle Jack.
My Aunt Vicky.
And my father, Frank.
Between Jack and Frank, the family tree exploded.
Frank had twelve children.
Ten boys and two girls.
Jack had twelve children too.
Ten girls and two boys.
Even now it seems impossible.
Somehow the universe balanced itself out.
Then Grandma fell and broke her hip.
At the time, I didn't understand how significant that moment would become.
I was a kid.
The fall was just another adult problem happening somewhere in the background of my life.
The adults knew better.
They understood what it meant.
Grandma could no longer safely live alone.
Suddenly difficult questions needed answers.
What should happen next?
Who could help?
What was best for Grandma?
I remember hearing conversations between my father, Uncle Jack, and Aunt Vicky.
Not arguments.
At least not that I remember.
What I remember was concern.
Worry.
Adults trying to figure out how to care for someone they loved.
Children hear more than adults realize.
Most of it drifts away.
Some of it stays.
I remember understanding that something important was happening, even if I didn't understand the details.
Eventually Grandma moved in with Aunt Vicky and her family.
What may have started as a temporary solution became years.
For some of my cousins, those years became part of everyday life.
They knew Orla in ways I never did.
They shared meals with her.
Helped care for her.
Spent ordinary days with her.
They knew the woman behind the title of Grandma.
My experience was different.
I still thought of Grandma mostly through visits and holidays.
The stale candy.
The little silver Christmas tree.
The familiar house.
Then later, everything changed again.
Grandma moved in with us.
Looking back, that may have been one of the biggest changes of my childhood.
When you're one of twelve children, attention is already a limited resource.
There is always another kid who needs something.
Another argument.
Another scraped knee.
Another problem waiting to be solved.
Then suddenly Grandma became the person who needed the most care.
My mother's life changed.
And because my mother's life changed, ours did too.
The woman who had spent years caring for children was now caring for her own mother.
At the time I didn't understand the responsibility.
I didn't understand the sacrifice.
I didn't understand how exhausting it must have been.
I only knew that Mom seemed different.
Busier.
More focused.
Less available.
Not because she loved us less.
Because Grandma needed her more.
Today that seems obvious.
As a child, it was simply the new normal.
Grandma wasn't someone we visited anymore.
She was simply there.
Part of the house.
Part of daily life.
Part of the background of my childhood.
The funny thing about memory is that we often assume our memories are the whole story.
They aren't.
They're only our piece of it.
My piece was Christmas visits.
A little silver tree.
Stale candy.
A grandmother who eventually became part of our household.
Other members of the family remember conversations.
Shared meals.
Doctor appointments.
Years spent helping care for her.
Daily life.
Neither memory is wrong.
They're simply different pieces of the same puzzle.
The older I get, the more I realize how much of every family story exists outside my own experience.
I knew Grandma Stanley.
Others knew Orla.
The woman.
The mother.
The grandmother.
The person who existed long before I arrived and long after I left the room.
What I understand now is that families do remarkable things when someone they love needs help.
There was no perfect answer.
No easy solution.
Just three siblings trying to figure out how to care for their mother.
Then doing the best they could.
When I think of Orla now, I still see the stale candy.
I still see the little silver Christmas tree.
Those memories will probably never leave me.
But I see something else too.
I see my father worrying.
I see Aunt Vicky opening her home.
I see my mother becoming a caregiver.
I see a family adjusting because that is what families do.
And I realize that some of the most important things happening around me were things I was too young to fully understand.
Perhaps that is the gift of growing older.
Realizing that our memories are not the whole story.
Only our part of it.
Orla Stanley.
A name I almost forgot.
A woman I never knew as well as I wish I had.
But a woman whose life touched far more people than I understood at the time.