A Sad Christmas Memory - 2004 Personal Year of Change

The year, 2004, marked the start of many major changes in my life, as well as an awakening for more to come. What I am about to tell you of, step ahead only if you are able to handle the tears.

January 4^th, my family and I awoke to my grandmother saying my grandfather was on the floor. I knew it would come someday, but tried to brush off the knowledge of that. Facing it was difficult, seeing him there was harder. No one is ever really fully prepared for those moments. He had been ill for a full year, longer than doctors' said he had, after a stroke then heart attack.

I had gone through a divorce and had months before decided to move back home to assist my mom who had her own health issues. I felt the need to be there. I was working two jobs, one as an Administrative Assistant, and the other at a hardware store as a clerk. As things progressed with his health, I quit the hardware store job, to be there more.

Many people including myself don't know how to place certain happenings in life, in death, as I will get further in describing. My grandmother was brought into my mother's section of the duplex, she was weak with shock, and at 91, of course she would be. 33 years of marriage, her third husband lost, and suddenly displaced. A very independent woman, who now needed the love of family more than anything, we were there. Thankfully we were there. Her oil company would not deliver. Everything in the house froze and when I mean froze, solid ice with dishes encased in the sink. Pipes froze and broke, raining in the kitchen around the light fixture. An utter shame that would sicken anyone. An odd day, and another followed, with the aroma of coffee brewing, toast, eggs frying in a pan. I won't try to explain that, nor some of the sounds that came from that side of the duplex.

My mom and I were on the floor, sleeping to be near my grandmother on the couch, as furniture was still needing to be moved over, her bed and her loved belongings. We were trying to concentrate on television, a good comedy of sorts was playing. My grandmother was asleep, and seemed comfortable. I looked at the T.V. rather disinterested as I can be sometimes in depth of thought. I turned again to look at my grandmother, and what I saw shook me inside, and I tried to just kind of "disconnect" it, but I looked again, still there. I looked at my mom and directed her eyes upon my grandmother, she rather paled. I asked, "are you seeing what I'm seeing, or maybe we're thinking too much upon everything?" I blurted out the vision questioning it. "Mom, why is grandpa's face on grandma???!" Weird part is, I knew the why. Her time to follow was to come, in my heart I believe he wanted to somehow ensure the part of family and love to be there with her. He had expressed this to me days before his passing, someone needed to take care of her, he wanted me there. Hard to explain some things that are rather a bit unexplainable. The only thing that passes before my mind is to try to understand something in it, to which is usually my attempt. The next morning grandma said it felt like grandpa was sleeping next to her in the night.

To better assist my grandmother's health and the situation at the duplex that my mother could not afford, I searched for a home in a lower bracket for my mother. A trip to N.Y. a place where my grandmother had not been in 70 or more years, but always wanted to go back. I found a home and the move was set in motion.

My grandmother's health picked up incredibly, she was walking more again, laughing, joking, and even went out to karoke to sing. A funny moment, not much times for restaurant visits, we gathered at one for a meal. She offered the waitress a hand cleaning up. It was beautiful to see her so happy, and having a good time. I laughed on one outing where she had a Burger King Whopper in her hands, driving down the road, chuckling, I said, "Gram, that thing is about as big as your head!!"

Some months passed without much of a worry. I had met someone during that time period in N.Y. and had moved in with, and he would take me to my family's home every day to help with things. It was way up on a mountain, though a very short ride to my mother's. The place was in disarray with the onset of colder months, and we had acquired another place to live, sleeping in the new apartment. He decided one day to go hunting on the following day, so I asked my sister if could come get me. She said she would try. The place was cold and nearly empty the next day, and I was rather stuck there. She never showed up. He got back as evening set in, and asked if I wanted to go to my mother's or the apartment. I told him my mom's as I worried over my grandmother. He hesitated but took me. As we came off the mountain, I had never seen them before, the Northern Lights. I had him stop the car for a moment so I could step out and see them better. It was like a rainbow dancing in the darkness, fascinating, but yet I had an odd feeling come over me. I told him outright, I was worried my grandmother may have fallen and hurt her hip. He asked why. I told him, because I always was there with my hand outstretched to guide her steps into the bathroom. (she never liked canes and things, stubborn, and like I had said, pretty well independent, though she enjoyed my hand there for her)

We reached the door. I knew what the note said before I read it. They were at the hospital, but in a hurry they never said which one, my grandmother had fallen and yes, hurt her hip, a rather minor fracture but healing can be tough at certain ages. He and I went back to the apartment and got this information from my mother and sister, and younger brother, after two calls were made to area hospitals. She needed to stay for more observations, which also it was found she had Alzheimer's's.

A day bed was brought in, and my mom and I took turns assisting her in and out of it, and into a wheelchair, which she hated. She was not beyond cuss words in thoughts of it, but we continued. A nurse would come in week to week, told us it was best not to force her. We'd get her in it, if she'd agree, some days not agreeing at all. After a little while she became more completely bed-ridden. I could see it bothered her so much. She remarked she felt she was a burden. I told her, "I love being here for you, you've always been here for me." My mother and I changed her beddings, as hospice did their checks regularly. Commented we were doing great with her, no bed sores, very clean. Of course, she was the most important person on the planet to us. She was asked some questions of who her mother was, rather silly ones, but important to of her frame of thought. She told them myself, and my mother, were her mother's. The woman said laughingly, "well you can't have two!" She got mad, "the hell I can't!"

Christmas was coming, she was eating less and less. We held a special meal. Decorations were put up early. It was her favorite holiday. We got her into the wheelchair to see the porch lit, glistening in red garland, twisted around white posts, looking like candy canes. Her eyes shined, like we do as children at the season.

Things changed rapidly in the next coming days. She couldn't speak, nor open her eyes. I'd sit and hold her hand to make her kind of aware I was there. As that inevitable time neared closer, in the last day or two, she gripped my hand very very tight, the grip had so much strength, and then she shoved it away in the same strength. In my thoughts upon her, I viewed as her saying she loved me, but didn't want me there witnessing what was to come. That course of action she made happen. I awoke to a telephone call, 4 days prior to Christmas, she left her shell. He and I made it there before they, (the coroner) removed her from my mother's home. Hospice was there with a supportive comforting voice for all. My mother and I sad quietly in the kitchen, obviously both of us in much thought.

Christmas Eve was her wake, maybe that love of hers in the holiday, marking her own. We still had Christmas, as always, for her, and managed some laughter of things, as it was not a holiday that should have sadness we tried to stay in those thoughts, as she would have wanted us to. She was there in our hearts, and always will be.