Going, Going, Gratitude

We all have to face the loss of a loved one at some point in our lives.  The hardest are the unexpected and tragic deaths, or those whose lives have ended too soon, but even when you know the time is near for someone, and you’ve accepted that their passing is the best outcome, the loss is still hard.

I got word that my grandma will only live for another week or two.  She has been on dialysis for the last few years and the process has slowly stolen her mind and body.  A recent injury and issues with dialysis have led my grandpa to what must be the hardest decision of his life, to stop her dialysis treatments.  Now, as her blood becomes more polluted, she will slip away to death, a process, the professionals say, will take anywhere from one to three weeks.

While the news wasn’t unexpected, it hit me harder than I thought it would.  I spent the weekend getting teary-eyed as thoughts and memories floated through my head.

I have so many wonderful memories of my beautiful grandma.  It’s selfish of me to not want her to go.  She doesn’t even really remember who we are anymore.  It’s only fair that her lovely soul be freed from her broken body.

But I don’t want to say good-bye, so instead, I’ll say “Thank You”.

My grandparents have always lived in St. Paul, where I grew up.  We spent a lot of time with them as kids and I thank my grandma for the carefree hours we spent rolling or sledding down the steep hill behind their house, or running through the sprinkler in our undies, as she and grandpa listened to the Twins on the radio.  I want to thank her for spending hours playing card games with us, as well as the occasional game of scrabble and dominoes.  And thank her for the sketch she drew of me diving off a diving board at swimming lessons in 1989, I still have it safely stored away.

I thank her for helping us “work” at grandpa’s auto parts store when we came to visit during the day, helping us up on the tall stools behind the counter to impress customers with our cuteness.  I want to thank her for her innocence and the laughs it brought – like the time when the internet was “new” and she was afraid to use our AOL dial-up because she was worried she might actually delete the internet.

And, thanks grandma for the weekend sleepovers complete with gram and gramps narrating a slide show of my mom and her siblings as they were growing up, we loved seeing the life size images projected on a screen in the kitchen. 

And thank you for the weekends when all the women in the family would gather at your house pre-holiday season to make homemade noodles that would become lasagna or ravioli for our giant holiday gatherings.  Grandma, mom and the aunts would knead and roll, while us kids would take turns turning the crank on the noodle maker, or carefully bringing freshly flattened dough to grandma’s big table to await it’s next turn through the noodle maker.  We’d get the left over noodle dough to cut into little animal shapes that grandma would cook up for lunch.

These everyday activities that have been cemented as memories in my mind, and stayed crystal clear all these years, are the result of the love and time she invested in us grandkids.

I will miss the delicate, graceful way she made her way though each day.  I’ll miss being embarrassed by the silly interactions between her and grandpa. So much of this has already been lost over the last few years.  What remains is the feel of her baby soft cheeks and that flowery grandma smell when you go in for an embrace, I will miss these the most. And the joy she would get of seeing any visitor, even if she didn’t know who the heck they were anymore.

I was fortunate in that I knew all grandparents and all but two of my great grandparents.  I lost my paternal grandma when I was about 4, I vaguely remember her, but rest of my grandparents, great grandparents and great aunts and uncles, even a couple great, great aunts hung around until I was middle school age.  Longevity is on both sides of my family with folks living until the late eighties, nineties, even my great grandma who lived to almost 104.  Which also means - I’ve been to a lot of funerals, but it’s been a while.  And this feels different.

Maybe my perspective has changed.  The loss of my grandma has conjured up a strange mix of sadness and relief.  Relief that her soul will be free of her aching body, but sadness for my grandpa, whose life will change dramatically without the partner who has been at his side for what seems like an eternity.  In time, the teary-eyed memories will hopefully just come with a smile, but until then -  I won’t say good bye, I’ll just offer my gratitude to the sweet woman who embraced the role of grandma, and will remain in my heart and mind as a wonderful example of grace and love.