How do I explain the way my heart jumped as the phone rang at four in the morning? How I heard my mother start to cry in the next room as she received the information that her 81 year old mother had just been taken to the emergency room again?
That was Friday morning.
I went to work and at eleven, my mother called and said we needed to get to Dallas as soon as possible. Six hours later, my mother, my sister, my daughters and I were headed north to Dallas.
How can I explain the mixed feelings in that vehicle? You could hear my mother's heart breaking as her rosary beads clicked together and she tried to imagine a world without her mother. You could hear the subdued hum of excitement from the back seats as my girls quietly think about seeing all of their cousins and getting to play outside and feed the horses.
How can I tell you that I wanted nothing more than to do 120mph when my phone rang at mid-night and my aunt said that we really needed to hurry because 'there isn't much time left"? Not for me. I could have gotten there too late and it would have been ok... but my mother? She had to be there. She had to say goodbye to her mom and while she wouldn't have said it, I had to make sure she did.
Shortly after that phone call, I pulled into my aunt's driveway and parked the car. My mother ran to her mother's bedside and I woke the girls up so I could bring them inside. I turned to see my cousin standing there and he proceeded to take Trin from my arms and usher the other girls so I could go immediately back to be with my mom and my mom's mom.
How can I even begin to tell you what it was like in that room?
The room that the girls and I slept in the last time we visited was transformed from it's usual guest room decor to a hospital room. A metal bed lay diagonally in the middle of the room now with an oxygen machine a few feet away sucking and hissing. And snugly encased and white sheets and a purple nightgown with a rosary draped in her hand and oxygen on her mouth and nose; my grandmother. The woman who I am named after.
But not her.
Not the woman who always painted her nails and put curlers in her red hair. Not the woman who, while several inches shorter than me, could instill fear in me with little more than a look should I decide to mouth off. Not the woman who made the best pork chops on the planet. Not the woman who called and told me it was ok that I was pregnant at sixteen because I could do it if I tried. Not the woman who let me and my sister wear her high heeled shoes. Not the woman who sent me gorgeous clothes for Christmas every year. Not the woman who claimed she would "murdalize" me if I didn't behave.
This wasn't her.
This was a body who's amazingly bright spirit had faded into something very very tired of being alive any longer. This was someone who had decided they didn't want to live any longer. The spark, the love, the joy that had once inhabited that body was little more than a fading glimmer.
It was as though she had just chosen to give it a little more time so we could all come and say our final farewells.
It wasn't what I expected. But I wasn't sure what to expect either.
I expected to cry and I did. I cried because I have such wonderful memories of her and because she was a beautiful and strong woman and I will miss her. I cried because it broke my heart to see someone as vibrant as she was like that. I cried because I love her.
And I cried because every time my mother broke down, it killed me.
But I also laughed.
I laughed as story after story was told. My mother's and her siblings took turns reminiscing about both of their parents and their childhoods. And the grandchildren that were there listened and did the same.
And while there was a cloud of solemnity encasing the house, it was very bittersweet and calm.
It occurred to me that I should be so lucky to leave this world that way. To be surrounded by dozens of people who love me and who wouldn't have existed without me. Of all the people who came and went, only two of them were not directly descended from my grandmother.
I held her hand and smoothed her hair and cried as wave after wave of memories hit me.
And when it was needed, I held someone else's hand and reassured them that everything would be ok.
I slept very little.
I played softball with the girls and uncles and cousin outside my grandmother's open window. I helped with dishes and fielded phone calls for those unable to take them. I kept kids out of everyone's hair and made sure to smile at them so they would know it was all ok. I took pictures and listened when someone needed to talk. And when I was blissfully unneeded, I made my way back to the bedroom to play with my grandmother's hair while she slept.
I was sitting on a foot stool next to her bed with her swollen right hand and rosary in mine. I played with her short gray hair, hoping it helped her relax, when she took a deep breath and exhaled and didn't breathe again.
A minute passed and her children were all there and I moved to the other side of the room so they could be near her.
A flurry of activity ensued as phone calls were made and time of death was called.
7:35p, March tenth, 2007
Passages were read and more phone calls.
A final farewell was said by my grandmother's bed around 11:00p as the men who were there to take her to the funeral home waited in the next room.
I have to tell you that people who've decided to make death their career are some of the nicest people I've ever met. I met three different hospice ladies, one nurse, and two men from the funeral home and ALL OF THEM were constantly asking if we needed anything, from a drink to a kleenex to a hug and one lady even sat down in the other room with the smaller children to color.
My grandmother will be cremated and all but some of her ashes will go into an urn. The few ashes left out will be separated into a few lockets for her children to where and the urn itself will go to Viksburg, Mississippi where it will be buried with my grandmother's parents.
When she was asked why she wanted to go home to Mississippi instead of to Tyler (where her husband is buried), she said she wanted her final resting place to be with her family because her husbands family wasn't ever very nice to her and she wasn't spending eternity with her in-laws.
She is at peace now and I am happy for her.
I will miss her but I am glad she doesn't have to suffer here any longer.
Labels: death, my grandmother
