My Grandmother

In late January, I received a call from my Mom, letting me know that my Grandmother had experienced a massive stroke, and wasn’t expected to recover.  She was my only remaining grandparent, who I had frequently visited in Modesto on my trips to and from LA.  She had been the original source of my Lego collection, and lived in what had been my favorite place on earth, my grandparent’s farm.  We had always been particularly close compared to the rest of the family, so that was tough.  She had not regained consciousness, and was being moved to a hospice facility.  There didn’t seem to be anything to be gained from my presence there, so I continued working in LA.  It was a hard reality to deal with, and I was fortunate enough to have a number of good conversations with H to help me work through it.  I had expected for many years that this would be the event to break open the floodgates on the crying thing, but due to the slow progressive way that events unfolded, one step at a time, it still didn’t happen.

My parents and aunt and uncle were with my grandmother in shifts for two weeks, before she passed away without regaining consciousness.  I didn’t learn until years later what the realities of her being transferred to hospice actually meant.  Reading though my Mom’s notes, she describes it as watching my grandmother starve to death over two weeks, because even unconscious, her body was still functioning independently.  Basically there was no plug to pull, except a feeding tube.  I know my grandmother was finished and as ready as one can be, but it is still not an inspiring thing to ponder.  The end is rarely pretty.

I of course did go north for that funeral.  I was only up there for a short time, but was a speaker and pallbearer at the funeral.  I got to see my young cousin for the first time since her father’s death, and realized how much my absence at his funeral was probably a mistake, from a family dynamic perspective.  Everyone plays a different role in their own family, mine is the voice of reason.  But I was headed back down to work as soon as the events were over.  I still have never seen my grandparent’s gravesite at the San Joaquin Veteran’s cemetery, since the graveside services there don’t actually take place at the gravesite, but I intend to someday.  It just has to happen on a trip when I am not passing through at 7am or midnight.