Her Name Was Lola

Someone mentioned Alzheimer's to me in passing the other day. I don't remember the context now, but you know how sometimes a single word can trigger a stream of thoughts that can run for minutes, hours, days? Alzheimer's has been rattling around in my brain until this morning as I merged from one freeway onto another headed for work and had this intense flash of memories about my Grandma Lola. She died of Alzheimer's five or six years ago. Something else might technically have taken her last breath, but Alzheimer's definitely took the best of her. The part that loved Willa Cather, cold sodas and sultry jazz.

I never really knew her much growing up. My dad's parents kept to themselves out in Manhattan during my childhood. But Grandma Lola and I both ended up living in the Bay Area at the same time. I spent occasional Saturdays in her dark apartment, blinds drawn, listening to jazz and sipping soda as she remembered falling in love with Grandpa Gayle, raising her kids, growing up with her siblings. By the time her memory began to slip I had moved away. So Lola remains lucid and warm in my memories.

I was on vacation in Paris when I got the email that she had died. The next day I spent my transatlantic flight writing down memories of her. Later they became this little audio tribute. I listened to it again today in her honor.

If I have a daughter one day, I'd like to name her Lola.