Crazy As Her

Summary: Future, way past administration. Donna's granddaughter's POV.

Author's Notes: This is the POV of a 17 year-olds, and the writing style reflects that. If it seems a little… wandering at times, that's on purpose, put yourself in her mind set. Oh yeah, angst warning. Not too bad, but a little.

Everyone says she's crazy. I've heard the stories, witnessed them myself for the last seventeen years, and I have to admit, it's a solid argument. But she's always had this thing… that drew you to her. Her bright blue eyes that shine through that silver bob she's got and those laugh lines around her eyes that prove she's been happy over the years. Maybe craziness brings about happiness.

When I was a kid, my sister Millie and I would go there with our cousin, Beth, for the weekend and the three of us would reign as queens. And she always reigned with us. I never heard her say, 'go play in the other room.' It simply wasn't her style. When we played dress-up, she played with us. She'd pull out old vintage looking gowns that were out of style and all her jewelry and shoes, and the four of us would pretend to be going to a ball. Then, in costume, we'd walk down to the little café on the corner and have lunch. People stared at us, but she didn't care. We were having fun and that was all that mattered.

At least once a month in the summer, she'd take us to the zoo. She'd let us ride the ponies and she'd buy us those bottles to feed the goats with, but she was the only grown-up I ever saw who actually got one for herself too. And whenever she took us to the park, she'd get in the swing next to us and dare us to swing as high as her. I don't know too many other women in their late sixties who do that.

And yes, sometimes she talks to Grandpa, who died when I was seven. Like a few months ago, when she slipped on the ice and fell, dropping her grocery bag and breaking the eggs inside. She looked up at the sky with a smile and said, "Don't laugh at me, Joshua." So yes, that might sound a little crazy, but I don't think she actually hears him talk back.

Granted, last year when I got my license, she gave me her car. Said she never liked driving, that's what she missed most about DC. That weekend she bought a bike. A pink bike at the age of 79. And until just last weekend, she rode it pretty much every day. Now I can see how that might lead people to believe she's a tad bit on the crazy side, but I thought it was funny.

And stories… she told the most amazing stories. Stories about Grandpa and of how they met and what a chicken he was when he asked her father for his blessing, and how he proposed, and how he fainted when she had mom. Right there in the delivery room like you see on TV, and how when she had Uncle Sam and Aunt Becky, the nurses had made fun of him and brought smelling salts and a gurney into the room.

She told other stories too. Stories I'm positive she's gotten mixed up somewhere along the way. Stories she must've forgotten some of the details to. Like Grandpa almost setting the White House on fire or the two of them and a friend trapped in Indiana with no way out and everyone in the whole state hating them. Like anyone could get trapped here in Indiana… Or that they met President Fernandez when he was seventeen years old and was trapped in the White House during a lock down and Grandpa teased him the whole time because he knew he was special and was going to be important someday. I mean, I know Grandpa was something in his day, but he died 10 years ago. I'm to believe he knew and made fun of the current President?

And can she talk. Mom says Grandpa used to say she talked more than anyone he'd ever met. It's like she knows everything. The silliest things like when Sesame Street started and when Elmo came on the show, and who the President of Zimbabwe was in 1978 just pop out of her mouth at any given time. I went through about a six month phase in ninth grade where I was hell bent to prove her wrong, but every time I looked something up she'd said, I found out she was right. Still doesn't mean I believe her when she gets that gleam in her eye and says she once saved social security.

Mom says if she's nuts, it's because Grandpa made her that way. That he spent the thirty-two years they were married and the ten years before that slowly driving her out of her mind. I don't remember too much about him, just glimpses. I remember he, Beth, Millie and I flying to New York for the day, just the four of us, and then riding the subway out to Shay Stadium to watch the Mets play. He let us stand and hold onto the bar, even though Mom and Dad never let us do that in DC. I remember we sat in the left field bleachers because he said that was our best bet of catching a home run ball and he wore his mitt the entire game just in case. We didn't catch one. I remember he bought us each a hot dog and promised it would taste good, even though I hated hot dogs, and he was right. I remember that right before Kindergarten started, he came to our house and picked me up and took me to pick out my first backpack for school. After he died, Grandma took me every year for a new one well into middle school. I remember that he always cornered Grandma in the kitchen and kissed her while she was making dinner and that we used to tease him and sing "Grandma and Grandpa sitting in a tree…" I remember meeting three ex-presidents when he died, and thinking he must've been an important man before he got old and became a grandpa. And I remember after the funeral, when it was just family, Grandma saying that of the four Presidents they worked for, his favorite was the only one that hadn't been there, but that it was nice to see his three daughters. I remember thinking it was really crappy that he hadn't come to Grandpa's funeral. At the time, I didn't know he was already dead.

It was weird growing up, studying Presidents in middle school and high school, thinking my grandparents had actually known these people, worked with them, befriended them, hung out with them. I remember studying the first President they worked for in eighth grade and reading for the first time that "President Bartlet and Senior Aide, Josh Lyman, had been shot in Virginia two years into their first term. For the President, it was a minor injury, but Mr. Lyman had almost died." In all the stories she's told over the years, she never mentioned that, not once. I went home and asked Mom. She knew, of course, but said it was just something Grandma and Grandpa never liked to talk about. Even now, I've never heard her mention it.

Now being Parkview Memorial Hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana. We moved here from Washington when I was thirteen and dad got a job as the principal at Northrop High School. We moved Grandma out here two years later to keep an eye on her. She refused to live with us though, saying she didn't need a babysitter, and bought a small condo a few miles from us. Uncle Sam and Aunt Jodie live in Seattle and Aunt Becky and Uncle Eric live in LA, but they all flew out last night along with my cousins Beth, Joe, Erin and Josh. Josh is the youngest; he's only seven. He's sitting on the side of her bed reading her a story, and even as weak as she is, she keeps teasing him to use voices when he reads. She always used to tell me voices made stories more fun.

I feel bad for Josh. That his memories of Grandma are going to be like mine of Grandpa, sporadic. That he won't remember trips to the zoo and eating lunch while wearing what was once a very expensive dress, that he won't have an ashtray he made in third grade art class still sitting on her dresser collecting change eight years later, that he'll never catch lady bugs with her and squish them around his wrist to make a bracelet, that they'll never dress up as pirates and go trick-or-treating together. Those are memories only Millie, Beth and I have. We're the oldest; we had her in her prime. When she was old enough to spoil the hell out of us and young enough to have fun with us. Joe and Erin are 11 and 13, they'll remember her, but not the way we will. When they were ready to be spoiled by Grandma, she'd started slowing down. Renting movies and making microwave popcorn with them instead of taking them to the drive-in along with a charcoal grill and grilling hotdogs and hamburgers for anyone who happened to be there too. But for Josh, he'll remember even less. Maybe that she bought him his first backpack or that she flew to LA last year to watch him play in his soccer tournament, but when we were kids, she would've been in the field before the game kicking the ball around with us and he'll never have anything like that to remember.

Millie, Beth and I have gathered here in the corner of her room, quietly watching her with Josh. We know what's coming. That in a few days we'll be flying to DC to bury her next to Grandpa. That two living ex-presidents will probably attend the service as well as the few friends from the days of ole that still remain. They'll look at us and think about Grandma when she was young, when she had a different last name, when she made a difference on a global level, and they'll think it's sad that we didn't know her then, not taking into account the difference she made on a completely different level. The difference she made to our family, and especially to the three of us.

And after the service, people will stand around and tell stories of her and of her with Grandpa. But they won't tell those stories the way Grandma would've. They won't get completely lost in them, laughing and crying and smiling as if she were right there again. They won't say Grandpa's name in a way that absolutely drips of love and takes years off their faces the way she would've.

Josh gets up after she tells him she's going to Heaven to visit his grandpa because she misses him very, very much. He asks if she misses him as much as he misses his dog that ran away, and she says she misses him more than anything in the world. He smiles and kisses her cheek then, surely thinking she'll be back after her visit, and she tells him he has his Grandpa's dimples, then reaches out and touches his cheek. He hugs her and leaves with his book, but we stay here. She asked us to stay right after she told us to wait for the right man, that it'll make all the difference in our lives and we'll never regret it for a day. She asked us to stay, so we do, holding hands and trying not to cry. Trying to stay strong for her, although we all know there's no need to. She's strong enough for the four of us.

Mom, Uncle Sam and Aunt Becky come in then and gather around her bed. She takes Mom's hand and strokes it with her own, then explains in a shaky voice that everything they need, including her will, contact information for her lawyer, all her insurance papers, and her funeral arrangements are in the safe in her closet. I smile as I listen, Grandma is nothing if not organized. Then she says in a voice more serious than I've maybe ever heard it in my life, that her wedding ring is not to be taken off her finger. She made a promise to Grandpa, and she's not about to break it now. She's already discussed this with the funeral home, but they're to remind them. Uncle Sam wipes a tear away as he nods and I make a mental note to make sure the doctors and nurses know it too.

She asks each one of them to tell her something that'll make her smile, and they do, Mom reminding her about the surprise 25th anniversary cruise Grandpa took her on, and how he'd never been one to plan things well, and although he did great with the cruise line and had booked the Presidential Suite on the ship and had excursions planned and flowers in the room, he'd forgotten to pack his dress shoes and had to wear gym shoes with his tuxedo and suits at dinner until they'd gotten to Cancun and bought him new ones there. Uncle Sam tells her she was right all those years ago, it was him who broke the hideous vase some senator had gotten her and Grandpa as a wedding gift. Aunt Becky chokes on sobs the entire time she tells her the story of Grandma and Grandpa taking all three of them to the White House and having to look for her for almost an hour because she got lost and wondered into the residence, and had fallen asleep on the bed in the Lincoln bedroom.

It's almost midnight when she finally closes her eyes for the last time, whispers Grandpa's name and slips away. At first, it looks like she's just sleeping, but then the machine monitoring her flat lines, and the noise breaks the silence in the room and Mille starts crying harder than I've ever heard her cry before. She and Beth and I cling to each other while Uncle Eric holds Erin and Joe and Mom, Aunt Becky, and Uncle Sam hold hands around the bed, crying quietly themselves. Josh is asleep in the other bed in the sterile room, and doesn't wake up when the on-call doctor comes in and quietly says the time of death.

It takes me a few minutes to be able to look at her face, and it's sad when I finally do because I can't see her bright blue eyes smiling back at me. And I realize it's over. We'll never make sugar cookies with her again, never run in circle eight patterns in the back yard until one of us falls from dizziness with her, never see that evil smile of hers that means she knows something we don't. There will be no new memories with Grandma, no new stories depicting that she might actually be crazy after all. I squeeze Millie and Beth a little tighter and look at my amazing Grandmother one more time before closing my eyes and letting the tears fall. Maybe Grandma was crazy, but I hope some day I'm as crazy as her.