Tuesday, January 19, 2016

A Reluctant Farewell

The holidays are generally a stressful time for everyone, but this year tacked on an unwelcome surprise for my family. I've been reluctant to post this because posting it makes it feel more real. My grandmother died. I know this happens to most people at some point in their lives. People die. It happens. But this is the first time someone I cared about closely died and I've been old enough for it to effect me so deeply.

                                 

My grandmother was a wonderful lady. She was a little crazy at times because she was heavily medicated and pretty conservative, but I have so many fond memories with her. I remember cooking biscuits and gravy from scratch, swimming in her pool, and riding around on a big wheel in her back yard.

She always used to tell stories about how us kids would act silly and play at her house. As we got older we didn't see her quite so much, because we were all busy with our own adult lives. She had health issues and a bit of a shopping addiction (the television was not always her friend).

The strangest part of her passing was that I had just seen her a few days before. We had Christmas at her house, and she was running around the kitchen cooking everything in the world. So Christmas night I wasn't expecting to get a call saying she was in the hospital.

She had pneumonia a few weeks before, and we thought she was getting better. She was on medicine and was feeling better. Unfortunately she got an infection in her lungs. It had gotten so bad the doctors decided to put her under and on a ventilator so her body could focus solely on fighting the infection.

I stayed at the hospital for 5 hours. I only went home to sleep when I felt confident that she would be OK until I came back in the morning. Unfortunately, I was wrong. She died a few hours later. I wish there was something that could have been done. I wish she was still around to see where my life would take me. I wish the world still had such an amazing lady around. One thing so sure is she had a lot of adventures in her life. She saw so many places and had so many experiences. I hope my life turns out amazing like hers was.

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