My grandmother passed away a few years ago.
She was a sprightly, eccentric, eighty year old. In her hey day had been a consummate musician, playing first desk violin in symphony orchestras, and teaching music right into her old age. She was a grande olde dame - an actress – a drama queen and known by everyone in the little town she lived in
In her last years though, 60 years of smoking started to take its toll. She had taken up the habit as a young girl, when it was fashionable and trendy. In the end, she battled to breathe. She always had an asthma pump close by, and finally an oxygen tank towards the end.
She had also started to go senile, and started asking the same questions repeatedly until it drove us completely and utterly mental.
One question in particular comes to mind. She always asked it while she sat on a comfortable couch in our lounge, gazing out into the garden, sipping her wine (she always had to have a glass of wine) and eating her lunch.
“What is that” She would ask – a bony finger extended towards the glass door panes,
“– hanging in the tree down there? Is it a bird’s nest?”
“No gran” one of us would reply, “that is an air plant.”
My mother had a bunch of wispy air plants which she liked to hang in a tree which stood directly in front of our glass doors. They looked like Gandalf’s flowing beard hanging there, grey and delicate swaying gently in the wind.
A few minutes would pass. Gran would sip her wine and gaze out at the garden. And then…
“What is that – hanging in the tree down there? Is it a bird’s nest?” Again with the finger.
Eyes would roll in our heads. “No gran, it’s an air plant.”
After the 5th time we were all restraining ourselves from screaming deliriously like possessed banshees.
This would carry on for half an hour until the wine glass needed refilling. And then the question would resume unabated.
Everyday would be the same. Lunch would be served, gran would get her glass of wine, and while we sat around her, she would repeatedly ask:
“What is that – hanging in the tree down there? Is it a bird’s nest?”
And every time, we would take it in turns to answer. It was not a bird’s nest, it is an air plant. We did it in relays, just for the sake of sanity. By the end of lunch we had bulging veins in our foreheads. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
One afternoon however, we sat as we always did. My gran was in her spot on the couch, with a glass of sweet white on the coffee table beside her. Her lunch was on a tray, complete with condiments and napkin and we all silently prepared ourselves for the inevitable. My mother took her Valium®, I took my Calmettes™.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, the inevitable persistence began.
“What is that – hanging in the tree down there? Is it a bird’s nest?”
“YES!” my father burst out like a popped balloon “YES! YES! YES!”
We all looked at other, stunned. We were all wide awake now, sitting wide eyed on the edge of our seats, waiting in anticipation of what would happen next. The room had gone suddenly silent.
“OH!” replied my gran unperturbed, taking another sip of wine. “Well it’s a very strange looking bird’s nest.” Another sip. “What kind of bird is it?”
“A red breasted coastal chook” my dad replied, with the calm of human kindness.
We all looked at each other.
“Oh,” muttered my gran “I’ve never heard of that one before.”
She never asked about the nest again.
Today, any anomalies we come across in our family are known as red breasted coastal chooks or sub species thereof.
