A Treasure Found at Home

there is so much food here. and almost all of it meat or pie (or cake). i’m surviving on potato salad, cheese, and dessert. i think the sugar rush is the only thing keeping me from completely melting down.

we saw grandma this morning. she was much more lucid than yesterday. but, she knows me each time i walk in the room. i joke that it’s because i’m the only blonde, but that’s not really true. i’m not sure why she knows me, but i’m glad she does.

when too many people are in the room, she gets overwhelmed. her eyes get big and she looks a little frightened. i like to catch her eye at that point and tell her it’s ok, she doesn’t need to interact with everyone, we don’t mind if she doesn’t want to talk. maybe i’m making it up, but it seems to help a little.

today when we went to visit she was sitting up in her wheelchair. she wanted to go on a walk. well, really she said no one comes to visit her ever, and if no one comes, who would push her around? so we changed her o2 tube to connect to the portable tank and off we went! cousin lony and i wrote a note asking the beautician to do grandma’s hair tomorrow then caught up with mom and aunt s as they were coming back in from their 30 seconds outside. they got to see the flowers before grandma decided it was just too cold.

we sat in the foyer for a bit before grandma got suddenly very tired. i remembered her o2 tank had made some funny noised earlier, and sure enough… when the nurse checked it for us… it was out. we took grandma back to her room and after much begging on her part, put her back into bed. (she even held her hands together in faux prayer.)

she asks about grandpa, but my mom and her sibs don’t think it’s a good idea to tell her. we’re not sure she’s going to remember if we do tell her. i’m not sure i agree, but i don’t think it’s going to be at all helpful to argue the point right now. she looks concerned when we tell her grandpa is sick and can’t come see her. like she doesn’t believe us and thinks there’s some other reason he’s not visiting. “where’s dad?” “where’s bob?” she asks every time i’ve visited her.

as we left, my mom cried and said it felt like she’d been robbed. she doesn’t really have two parents anymore. she’s lost them both. that grandma is so far from normal. i told her that how grandma is IS normal, that it’s still really hard, but that it is normal.

i realized later that might not have been the most comforting thing to say.

tonight from five to eight was the viewing and visiting hours. family only from five to six, with an open casket, and then public visiting hours from six to eight with a closed casket.

mom and loney didn’t want to see grandpa so they spent the first hour out in the foyer of the funeral home. i’m think they were the only two who didn’t go in at that point.

i had to. i had to make it real. i wish i had a picture, no matter how tacky that seems, because it still doesn’t seem right. it still doesn’t seem believable. i’m not sure why. i guess because it was so sudden compared to grandma great and poppo. aj was pretty sudden, and i’ve never even seen her grave, so even her being gone feels a little weird. though not as weird as being in grandpa and grandma’s house and knowing he’s dead and she’s never leaving the nursing home.

ugh.

i didn’t want them to close the casket, and i didn’t want to leave the funeral home when the visiting hours were over. his is the first dead body i’ve ever touched. i put my hand on his hand before i left so they could close the casket.

i didn’t touch poppo. is it really the sudden aspect of this that’s making it so hard for me? poppo was sick for so long it was almost relief when he died. this is a blessing for grandpa because he didn’t have to suffer through the pancriatic cancer, but i wanted more hugs and more songs and more of his voice and his huge grandpa hands and…
i would be standing there chatting with relatives and suddenly realize i’d sort of forgotten why we were there. and the casket was closed by then so i’d look over and have to force myself to know that grandpa was inside.

i’m afraid tomorrow is going to be really hard for me.

i just want to curl up with someone and be held all night and cry and cry and cry.

i also want mom to let me stay and help with grandma for a while and help she and pat go through the house and sort things. mostly, i want to spend my time with grandma. she’s so little. like a little bird, we’ve always said, and it’s so true. a tiny tiny woman, about ninty five pounds now. i want to sit with her and hold her hand and reasure her when they come get her for therapy.

she hates therapy so much that today she said it would be ok if she got pnemonia if that was her choice besides therapy. she’d rather have pnemonia!

we all think she’ll go soon, but it’s hard to say for sure.

the first night i was here i dreamed that the nursing home called to say she’d died, too. mom and dad both say it would be a blessing for her, and i’m inclined to agree. she’s not interested in doing what she needs to do to get her health back, and i’m not sure how much she could regain even with a lot of effort on her part. her quality of life is … well it’s really hard to say. she’s not aware of her surroundings for most of the time, and she does seem to be confused a lot. what kind of life is that for her?

so many questions and i’m feeling so far away.