I don't even know how exactly to start this, but I knew I needed to get these feelings out somehow.
My grandmother passed away yesterday. One minute she was here, the next she was gone. How is that possible? How is it possible that I'll never hear her laugh again, or hug her again, or hear one of her jokes? How do people exist in this life and then just fade away? It doesn't seem real. She had been in the hospital for months. Months without visitors (due to Covid) months where she asked every single day when she would be able to go home. She hated hospitals, and she is not the isolating type. She's a social butterfly, talking and joking and laughing with family and friends was her life. Tuesday she came home, and Friday she was gone. She waited. She waited until she was home with her husband and her daughter, she waited until she was surrounded by comfort and memories and just closed her eyes and went to sleep. And left us all here without her.
As a child my gram was one of my favourite people. She and I sang together, which was one of our favourite things to do, she told the funniest jokes and always had one in her back pocket for any occasion. She taught me how to say the alphabet backwards when I was 6, so that I could impress my Uncle the next time her visited home. She had the habit of breaking into song in the middle of the conversation because she heard a word that corresponded with one of the MANY songs she had in the rolodex of her beautiful mind. I remember spending summers at my grandparent's house while my mom worked on a nearby tobacco farm during the day. We would drive to Fast Eddie's, get some crazy fries and sit in the van (sometimes in the rain) and watch the geese in the park. Those are some of my very best memories.
My gram was generous. She always sent me home with something every time I left. This past summer, during one porch visit, she sent me home with a whole bag full of after 8 mints that were her and my favourite. She had saved them all for me. She never let me leave without a hug, even when we were recommended not to this past summer, she told us "If I get sick, I get sick. I want a hug" I'm so fucking thankful for every hug I gave her, for she was the greatest hugger.
How thankful I am that my children knew this woman and loved her. I am broken every single day knowing that I have other grandmothers who my children will never know. In this moment, among all of the grief and sadness I am so thankful that they will carry memories of her for the rest of their lives. They knew her, they knew how funny and goofy she was. They knew that she loved mint chocolate and when she finished her yogurt she used her finger to get every last bit. They remember the time she picked up the tv remote and tried to make a phone call with it, thinking it was the phone. They knew that she still had no idea how to pronounce "tacos" they knew all of this and it will be something they can tell their children who will never know her.
Where do people go when they die? I know that sounds like a question a 5 year old asks, but I'm curious too. I am not religious and I feel like science may say the answer is...nothing and nowhere. Nothing happens. You die and then that's it. But, the thought of that makes me panic inside. Not for myself, but for my gram. She spent her final days fearful. Fearful of being alone? The dark? The end? I can't say for sure, but the thought is still enough to turn my stomach. The only thing that calms me is imagining that in the final moment, someone was there with her. Someone she loved and recognized. Someone who took her fear away.
My papa spent the past 61 years with my gram. They almost became an extension of each other, especially in the past few years and after my grandfather stopped driving. When I think about my papa losing my gram and how he must be feeling, it makes it hard to breathe. Listening to my papa talk about my gram today with a sob choked in his throat, and feeling my own heart ache for him and what he's lost. His other half, his best friend, his "Babby" And fuck, this is all so unfair.
People get old and die, people get sick and die, people have bad lungs and bad hearts and they die. But even knowing all of this doesn't prepare you when it happens. We knew my gram was living on borrowed time. We knew she was tired and struggling. We even knew subconsciously that she was ready. But, knowing all of that doesn't make it easier. What I wouldn't give for one more hug, one more conversation, to hear her call me "Patricia" one last time, knowing that she was the ONLY one who ever called me that. I miss her so very much and she's only been gone for 24 hours. How do we put one foot in front of the other and joke and laugh and just go on without her? I talked to my brother tonight and he told me about how he was struggling to explain this loss to his son who is 3. And he said something that stuck with me. He said "I'll tell him that Gram went to live with the stars, and every night we can look at the sky and say there! There she is!" and it seemed so simple. We will look for her in the stars, and the flowers and the sunshine that she used to love to tan her legs under while she fed the chipmunks. We will find her in the beautiful things that are all around us and we will say "there! There she is!"
Thanks for reading. I hope this is coherent. I have been crying on and off for 24 hours, and I'm also drinking.
