I have thought about writing this blog for days but like most difficult things, I put it off. I wasn't sure what the definite beginning, middle or end would be but like most of my blogs I simply let the thoughts spill out and leave it just how my stream of conciousness comes.
There are moments in your life that forever change it and that you will never forget. I was in the front row of Mr. Schultz's Freshman English class when the planes hit the Twin Towers. I was sitting on a curb at a gas station when I knew my marriage was over. And I was laying in bed in a bathroom watching Melissa and Joey when I recieved the two consecutive phone calls of siblings announcing to me the passing of my Grammy. I'm not sure what created worse pain in that moment, hearing the words from my sister-in-law or knowing that I had to call my sister and break the news to her I knew she would never be prepared to hear. In reality, none of us were prepared to hear that news.
Grandma was 95 and all of us had been bracing especially for the last few months that this day was drawing nearer. As much as you prepare yourself and tell yourself every cliche in the book, you're never ready for that final phone call. For some of us we think about the last visit, how it was just days ago or how it was much too long ago, while others of us truly believe that she is in a better place. I want to have the strength to say the unselfish things and say, she's out of pain now and it's for the best, but that's not how I feel at all. For some reason, it hits me especially when I'm driving in the car that she's no longer here. My words have failed me thus far in any compacity to say what I think or how I feel. I have resorted mostly to a silence that has been tearing me apart inside. So here I am going to try to sum up the Grandma that I knew until the end.
I think that my brother said it best during his eulogy that it was hard to point out one story about my Grandma because every time you saw her or talk to her was the same. It was special but ordinary in every way. With her, your time together never had to be about some big event but it was about the love in the room. From the moment you walked in there was a glow on her face and although you'd ask her house she was, she always made it about you or the next big thing that was going on in the family. There was something magical about the way even in a hospital bed how she could make it seem like she was always doing well and that what you were doing was more important, even if it was just working. I remember the day that she finally said to me "I'm not okay and I'm sorry that you have to see me like this and go through it." It was the most I had ever heard from my Grandma in the way of negativity or bringing a conversation back to herself. It was the only thing I ever heard her say like that and just moments later she was already on to how my marathon training was going.
It was hard when Grandma moved out of her home, where I had half grown up, and into an assisted living facility. In hindsight, I think that it gave me the extra blessing that the end was near. It made me ask her about events in her young life that otherwise I might not have thought to ask. I learned more about my Grandparents in the time she spent there than I did when I spent time with her at her house. Growing up my grandparents had always had gardens and hunted. It's where I got my love of nature and gardening. One of my grandma's favorite stories to tell about me was that when I was a young girl, my Grandpa and I would pick vegetables from the garden and I would run each and every one in seperately for my Grandma to wash. I told my sister the other day that it was so clear that even when she mentally didn't seem like she was with us, she really was. When my sister visited she was always sure to explain to her how to be a strong, fair leader and in between bouts of sleep she would give me her chicken soup recipe or try to explain why my vegetables didn't grow right last year. I'm glad that I spent the last year gleaning and writing down her advice on cooking and gardening. In a way, I'll know I can always find her when my hands are dirty and I'm sweating in the hot summer sun.
I know we all have different opinions about religion and Christians even differ so much within their beliefs of what a Christ follower looks like. To me, my Grandma will always be my perfect image of a Christian. It wasn't that she always had the Bible within a few inches of her to read (at the end with a magnifying glass) or that she was quick to offer a prayer for even the most minor of problems (usually without even mentioning she was about to pray). It was in the way that she loved. She was empethetic and non-judgemental. Trust me when I say there were times my siblings and I have had to lay some things on her that you wouldn't think a 90-year-old Christian woman would take well but she never questioned or made you feel bad for a slip up. She never forced you to talk about a topic that she saw as difficult but would gentle offer advice. There was something so genuine about her joy and love. In all my time of thinking what the source of that kind of love comes from the only solution I can come up with is a love and relationship with who she believed so strongly in.
This week as I said goodbye to one heartbeat, I heard a new one for the first time. Although there is nothing like hearing your son's heartbeat for the first time, it was a bittersweet experience for me. I know you can't have regrets when it comes to the things you do or don't do but I wish that I had told my Grandma that I was expecting. Even though this was a planned event according to when me and Jim wanted to start our family, there is a part of my family who makes it seem like I'm a 16-year-old who never learned how to use contraception or those who gossip and say that we were lying about trying in the first place. I made the unfortunate mistake of taking those people's burdens on as my own and even as others encouraged me to tell her I refused to. It was in this lapse of judgement that I forgot exactly who my Grandma was and that she would have nothing but pure joy.
My mom always says that you celebrate the good as it comes or it makes the bad unbearable. I just haven't felt like I've had to will to overcome my mourning and start to celebrate my little bundle. There are nights I feel so far removed from my current circumstances and caught in a cloud of confusion. As my sister told me today, you don't get over the ending of a lifetime of love in a week. It's not a matter of if I will heal, it is simple a question of when. Today I'll just try to concentrate on the good I've been given.
