Grandma L passed away on December 23, 2014, less than a week after I returned home from China.
I deal with hard things and grief in a weird way. I tend to shut them out, to not think about them, to not dwell on them. I mean, in a way it's nice, but then there comes a day when I completely break down due to long periods of time of holding in emotion. I think talking about this on here will help me in some way.
There have been so many visitors and the funeral and viewings and time with the family and Christmas that I don't think it has fully hit me yet that she is gone. It seems like just yesterday I was a little girl with my head rested on grandma's lap as she would play with my hair and now I'm looking at the rest of my life, not having her in it. She was beautiful, honest, caring, loving, wise, and everything else that a grandmother should be.
Saturday, December 20th, Ash and I went to clean grandma and grandpa's house. I knew when we got there that grandma was not doing well, again. It seems to hit her every winter, each winter getting worse than the last. We walked over to her, Ash and I on each side of her. I remember her talking about not being able to sleep for a couple of nights. She seemed confused at the pills grandpa had given her and she insisted that he had not given her all of the right pills. Something was off. I also remember us all comparing feet sizes and Ash slipped her shoe into gram's favorite moccasin showing that her foot was too big for the shoe. Grandma worked on getting ready just about the entire time Ash and I cleaned. It was quite the process for her, as she has to stop to catch her breath every few seconds. When we had finished and grandma came back out to her chair, we visited for a while and grandma dozed in and out of sleep. We mostly talked to grandpa.
The next morning my mom came in my room saying that grandma had been rushed to the ER that night and that she had been intubated. I knew this wasn't good, that it was the last resort. We spent the next three days in the hospital with all of the family and friends, waiting, hoping, and praying that she would make it through. We were able to go in and visit her, a few of us at a time throughout those few days. On Monday she had woken up and we could talk to her, but of course she could not talk back due to the intubation. We could tell she wanted to talk to us. We tried having her write, but her arms were strapped to the bed and she was very shaky. So it ended up being a bunch of letters on top of one another. It was heartbreaking and I went out of the ICU in tears every time. At one point, someone figured out that she wanted a coke.
By Tuesday, they thought that it was time to remove the ventilator and put her on the bipap. If she was doing well with that, they would work her back down to her regular oxygen. We talked about hospice and having her at home for her last few days, weeks, months. But we didn't know what was to come. When they moved her to the bipap, she was actually doing really well and the doctors were pleased with the outcome. It appeared that she was doing better. Ash, Payt, and I went in there and talked to her about buying her some Burt's Bees chapstick, her favorite. She still couldn't talk, but nodded her head. Payt said she thought she could see a smile when I kissed her cheek when we left the room. Us kids left the hospital for a little break, only to receive a call from my dad about ten minutes later saying to get back there, that grandma had taken a turn and she probably wouldn't make it through the night. We all stood around her bed for several hours. She had morphine in her and eventually shut her eyes. That was the last time I saw her beautiful eyes. We all cried and told grandma that she could let go, that we loved her, but she could let go. I don't know if she could hear us. Around eleven, Ash, Glenn and I were in the room with her and her breathing changed and the doctors said that she was going. We called everyone back in and they eventually took her bipap mask off and watched as she took her last breaths. She was a fighter, my grandma was. She did not want to leave us - her husband, her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends. It was such a hard night, the entire thing, like a nightmare that I couldn't and never did wake up from.
I didn't get to give her the gifts I got her in China and I didn't quite get to tell her about all my adventures while being gone and all the plans I have for this next year. I just wanted to talk to her, but time just went so fast.
I miss grandma so much. My heart aches to feel her love again. She showed me a love that no one else could. A love from a grandmother is just so special and I guess I can say that I am lucky that I got the time with her that I did - over 20 years. She did so much for me. I'm grateful that grandpa let me help with the obituary and the funeral and I even got to speak at the funeral. I would like to share my talk on here as well. That will be in a separate post.
Click here to read the obituary.
I love you, grandma.
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