Grandparents....

As a young girl I took life pretty much for granted. I thought everyone lived as I did - with both sets of grandparents as well as a set of great grandparents. As I grew older and went to school, I was very surprised that my young peers had maybe one or two grandparents total. Yet today I still have one grandmother and one grandfather still with me on this earth. Having grown up with all of their insight and life experience has been one of the most important factors in who I am today, and I am profoundly grateful to all of them. My maternal grandfather was the first who's leaving affected me quite deeply. He fought a valiant fight against cancer, but when the end came, in a weird twist of irony ended up in the very same hospital where I worked at the time. I was in my early 20's at the time. Although you think you are ready you never are. And it is never as dramatic as movies and TV make it out to be. He was in ICU, stuggling for every breath. We were only able to go in the room for 10 minutes each hour. As I worked there, they bent the rules a bit for me, or maybe it was because they knew what was to happen, a fact I blinded myself to. I had fallen asleep in the waiting room, and my dad had left the hospital to go get coffee. My mom was in there alone, praying, talking to him, I am not sure. I was woken up by one of the nurses who said it was time. Walking hurriedly into the room, I heard alarms and dinging bells, the alarms signaling in a strange mechanical symphony that all was not well. My mother was holding his hand and crying. Walking with leaden feet, I approached him and looked down at him, but his eyes were looking elsewhere. I remember he smiled that little enigmatic smile of his and then looked away. "Look at the monitors!" my mom cried over and over. I watched the spiky lines draw closer together and begin to warp up and down with less intensity. And then, they just...stopped, and the indicator drew to a straight green line on the monitor. I heard a high pitched noise and really believed it was the monitor, but later realized it was me. It all went black for me then. I lost it. OK to be honest, I freaked the fuck out. I do not recall any of this but apparently I was screaming and saying over and over "I will be a good girl". My mother and one of the nurses dragged me from the room and into the waiting room where I think they injected me with something I have no idea what. There's 10 minutes of my life that I have no idea or recollection of. I went outside to wait for my dad, I have no idea why I left my mom alone, after all this was her father. All I know is that I wanted mine. He walked up the parking lot and toward me, and he just knew without me saying a word. We went back upstairs and I stayed in the waiting room while he went in with my mom. A little while later we all left. I got into my car and said I would meet them in Lexington, where they were going to tell my grandmother. My car was old but it started well. I drove down the street and it just stopped working. Drifting to the curb, I remember thinking Oh God, not now. I sighed and looked out the window at the sunrise just peeking over the horizon. Inexplicably the car just started up on it's own. When it came time to attend the funeral, all the cousins were in one limo and "grownups" in the other. This limo went slower than anything, even on the highway. When we got there, the Catholic priest, who managed to mispronounce my grandfather's name at the service and who would not allow our priest to take part, was standing there waiting for us. He had never visited my grandfather and our priest, who is Episcopalian, had been over every week. At any rate he walked towards my mother with his hand outstretched. No words of solace or comfort, just "I've been waiting here forever. Why are you so late? Where is my money?" My mother, with her teeth clenched very clearly said "You haven't finished your job yet, go bury my father and you will get your money. Now leave before I say something I really do not want to say to a priest." Go mom! Since then he has appeared to me in dreams several times, assuring me that there is a better place. (I promise I will write more about that later). Several years later my paternal grandmother died, and what a void she too has left in my life. Her passing took several years to happen, but I was not with her when she left. As she was dying she kept asking my mom to help her up. Mom kept scooting her up in the bed, but that was not what she wanted. "Help me up" she pleaded. Mom asked her "What do you see? What's up?" "Over that hill." was the reply. My mom asked her who was there. With a beatific look she said "there's Momma, Daddy, Bertha," (her sister) and named off other people who had long since passed. This black look of anger then came over her face. Pointing she said "You BASTARD!" There was someone there whom she clearly felt did not belong. Who it was she did not say. When my aunt, uncle and dad had arrived, it was like she had waited for them. She just stopped breathing, and everyone began to cry. Then she took in a gasping last breath and everyone jumped and began laughing. As she passed, the last sound she heard was laughter. What a wonderful way to go. She has come to me many times over the years in dreams, and continues to make her presence known.
Not only was I blessed with grandparents but their siblings, who are like surrogate parents to me. On my mom's side, my grandmother's sister (Aunt Sally) is still with us at age 94 still going strong with her sister, my grandmother, who is 92. She's a whole separate blog. :) My grandfather's sister is my beloved Aunt Marge, who just died last year. She has had many monikers over the years, including Gigi, Aunt Cupcake, Auntie Macgyver, and finally Yoda. Now you must understand she was never a tall lady, I doubt she reached 5'5. As she aged, she shrank. She had a round little body and bright red hair, hence Auntie Cupcake; for she looked like a little treat with a cherry on top. She was very creative at making appliances work longer than they had a right to, hence Macgyver. Yoda... well... it was a little mean but she did resemble the wise old little character and she always was full of wisdoms. "And even though Greenough Ave was in a large apartment building, it was never her apartment, it was her house. From the high ceilings, to the stern photographs of family members I had never met, to the claw foot bathtub, to the green bedroom with the Japanese panel, to the knick-knacks; it was a magical place where the normal rules never applied and what time it was never mattered. It was a place locked in time, where the “older ways” were revered. She always kept in touch, she was always elegant, and though she may have been short of stature, her heart was without measure. I will so miss her chatty phone calls, her unique views and opinions, but most of all her warm hugs and kisses. She had told my cousin Charlene that when she died, she wanted a party; she didn’t want a lot of grieving. " I wrote this ( and more) at her eulogy. I still miss her, just as much as I miss my grandmother and grandfather. I don't think it gets easier to lose a family member as you get older, its harder. I still have two grandparents left, on on each side, and for this I am profoundly grateful. However, watching my grandmother's slow decline into a blank cloud without memories has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. Witnessing my grandfather's struggle with a body that no longer wishes to comply with simple instructions is heart wrenching. It seems so much more simple to remember them at their most vibrant. Maybe I'm not so grown up as I thought I was, for that seems somehow so childish and selfish of me. It's like a petulant child stamping her little foot and pouting. "No! I want them as they were. Not fair!" Indeed, but where is that written that life is fair and just all the time? "There are bigger things on Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy." I think that's how the quote goes.