Learning My Instincts

My women's-studies courses had emphasized the danger of naturalizing learned behaviors. Socialization became my new favorite word. It was freeing to believe that I wasn't more inclined to communicate or cry just because I was female. Suddenly my choices felt less like destiny and more like self-determination. I scoffed haughtily at my mom's goddess talk and insistence that women were inherently more peaceful.

Now, as I sat in that hospice room, I longed to feel some strong womanly instincts. Wasn't this something I was supposed to know how to do? My own mom, 5 feet 10 inches of maternal hurricane, would know exactly where to place her hands for support, how to untangle the oxygen tube, and she would know how to do it all without embarrassing my grandmother. She would know how to help expertly, invisibly, in that way that women-seemingly by birth-know how to handle death.

Facing the prospect of deep and irre—laceable loss for —he first time, I realized that socialization couldn't explain the duty that was swelling inside of me. It was as if the sight of my grandmother's vulnerability tapped unknown resources deep within me.

And as much as my mind hated to admit it, my heart knew that they felt like fundamentally female instincts. My uncle was the strong and silent type, a man's man who preferred to leave the messy stuff up to his wife and sisters. My father and brother-though both sensitive and feminist-weren't in that room, witnessing my grandmother's disintegration.

I ge—tly pulled the tubing from the oxy—en tank away from her arms and neck, so that it wouldn't get snagged and threaten her fragile breath. I set aside the discarded nightgown and put the new, brighter one over her head, being careful that it didn't catch around her ears. I pulled it down around her waist. I helped her swing her legs back on to the bed, gently putting my hands under each bony ankle and guiding them upward. I, again, held the oxygen tube while she scooted herself back onto the nightgown, back into her home, the little cave of bed where she rested.

"There," she said, smiling up at me, "thanks for helping an old girl out."