I’m trying here

Oct 03

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, family, me myself and i, memories, parenting, ramblings

…but the words just aren’t coming. I’ve had this window open all day, waiting to write something.

The trip was long. And hard. My grandmother was somehow worse than I expected. For some reason I though she’d be sitting up in bed with her hair neatly rolled, lipstick on, in her delicately lace trimmed nightgown, just waiting to go. If you knew her, you’d know this is how she would have it if she could. But it was not the way I found things when we arrived. They had accidentally given her more morphine that her meager eighty pound existence could handle. Not an overdose by a longshot. Actually about half the dose a normal person would take. But as a result, she slept for 16 hours straight. Her eyes fluttered open briefly when we arrived, but they had not been able to wake her up most of the day. She didn’t remember anything the next day. She had asked that the pictures on the mantle next to her bed be turned down. All except the picture of her husband who passed away when I was one month old.

In some ways, she was a tiny stranger curled up in that bed. But in others, she was more than ever like the grandmother I had always remembered. She hasn’t been able to hear well for years and years. Most of my childhood passed before she conceded to purchasing a hearing aid, which she usually didn’t wear or kept turned down after she finally got it. She just preferred to say “Huh?” “What doll?” “You’ll have to talk louder, I don’t have my hearing aid in.” But even from her hospital bed, her eyesight is sharp as a tack. She peered across her room into the hallway by the back door and asked Caleb about a car he had clutched in his hand. Just before we left, my mom and her sister went to the bakery downtown to get some donuts. Caleb and I sat and visited for those last few minutes. She looked as if she might doze off. Her eyes closed and her head slowly began to tilt. I tiptoed toward the doorway about the same time the back door opened. Her eyes popped open, head snapped back up, “I got to eat my donuts, get me a napkin,” she said. I get my sweet tooth honestly. At 8:30 one morning, the phone rang at my Aunt Marcia’s house (where Caleb and I stayed). She came down a few minutes later and said, “Well, mama wants potato salad. Right now.”

One time when she drove up to see us, many moons ago, before the age of cell phones…much less grandmas carrying cell phones. She was coming through Durham, NC. If you’ve driven through there at any point in the last 25 years, you will know that it is a never ending construction mess, with barriers, cones, and barrels scattered about, usually causing the speed limit to drop to 55 and in some cases, 45. Well it was beginning to get dark, and since all grandmother’s turn into pumpkins if they aren’t home by dark, she was trying furiously to get to our house. She was pulled over by a state trooper on the side of Interstate 85, ironically, for going 85pmh! I think he was a little stunned to find that the driver was an elderly lady, who incidentally burst into tears. “I’m lost and I’m scared, I’m trying to get to my daughter’s house!” Not only did he not write her a ticket for traveling 30mph above the posted speed limit, he escorted her to the county line after giving her instructions to continue ahead another 25 miles, where she would reach her destination. Bless his soul.

My mom was a rock as we said goodbye. I, on the other hand, was unable to talk, and cried all the way to the gas station on the outskirts of town. My mom told her own mother goodbye, and that daddy was waiting on her. So be at peace and let go.

I stole a few quiet moments away from everyone the night before we left. I visited William’s grave. I know about where my grandfather is buried, but I didn’t visit that side of the cemetery, as I know I will see it sometime soon. I hadn’t even thought of it until last night. I wonder how I should tell Caleb. I never thought about how to explain death to a two year old. He will most certainly recognize his great grandmother. Should I even take him to the funeral home? Should I avoid that side of the room so that he doesn’t see her? Should I take him over there and try to explain that she is sleeping? I don’t know. I hope the answers will come to me when faced with the situation. I hope my grandmother is able to find peace soon. I hope she is able to drift off to sleep. She is so tired of fighting.

Comments

2 Responses to “I’m trying here”

    Lauren
    October 3rd, 2007 10:34 pm

    What a touching blog…I’m crying just reading it. The lump in my throat won’t go away!! I will pray for her peace!!

    Shelli
    October 4th, 2007 8:12 am

    I’ve been there Rachel. The waiting time is the worst. (hugs) to you that your Grandmother and your family finds peace.

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