It has now been almost three months since Grammy died. Since she went into the hospital on June 1st, I have learned a bit about myself. Mainly, what is easy and what is hard. I will admit, the easy things have been a bit of a shock with how easy they were. The hard things, however, tend to be even harder to deal with then I had imagined them to be.
I am a caretaker by nature. This is evidenced in the fact that I am an ESFJ according to the Meyers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator that I did five years ago. I am motivated to take care of people in whatever capacity that I can. I have thought that I would make a fantastic nurse, if it wasn't for the blood/guts/bodily fluids that I would have to deal with and seeing people hooked up to all sorts of machines. I avoid those whenever I can, with one exception. When it came to taking care of Grammy, from when she had her first heart attack in 2006 to recently, there isn't anything I couldn't or wouldn't do to make her comfortable. When we were first able to see her on the day of her heart attack, I broke down before I entered her room. It isn't easy to see anyone in that state, but the fact that I was about to see her so helpless made it nearly unbearable. I did not want to see my hero so vulnerable. The Momma told me I didn't have to go in if I didn't want to, but in my heart I knew it was not a option. I needed to see her and needed her to know, in whatever way possible, that I was there. So I went in. Entering that room was hard, but once I was in, holding her hand was easy.
I went in that first day thinking it would be last time I'd see her. I don't know if she ever heard me or knew I was there. We can't know what was going on in her mind. In the evening she did open her eyes though. She looked so confused and scared, and I was so powerless to do anything about it. That was hard.. All I could do was hold her hand, stroke her face and sing her favorite song, "Que Sera Sera" by Doris Day. There was nothing else I could do. In all honesty, I would have sold my soul to give her peace that first night. That would have been an easy thing.
A few days later she was doing better. Enough that she kept reaching for her breathing tube to yank it out. The nurse said it was a good sign because it meant she was aware enough to know that it was bothering her. I am sure that it hurt her and it also took away the one thing that she was able to do, and that was talk. One morning before I went to work I came in to see her and she was trying to pull the tube out again. The nurse and I kept having to hold her hands down so she wouldn't hurt herself. I remember begging and trying to reason with her to leave the tube alone. I sang, told her jokes and stories about nothing in particular to get her mind on something else and I repeated how much I love her, all while holding her hands down. Staying there all morning with her, talking to her like I always had, that was an easy thing. Still, she wouldn't stop trying to pull the tube out, so in the end they had to put soft cuffs on her wrists to restrict her arm movement. I know that it had to be done for her safety and healing, but it was one more step toward her loss of independence, which she had valued and needed so much. That was a ridiculously hard thing to see.
I can't even talk, let alone write, about my last day with her, June 9th. It seems like everything in my life had been easy compared to that day. As many people do when someone they love dies, I want to go back there, to see her, hold her hand and have her hold me one more time. I know though, without a doubt in my mind, that she knew how much I love her. Knowing that is an easy thing.
The hard things now come in silly, unexpected places. I barely cried that first week. I don't know why. I was able to cancel her subscriptions, close her accounts and tie up loose ends. That came easily to me.
The following Sunday though, I reached for my phone to have our weekly Sunday night call, the call we had done every Sunday since I left for college. Right as I was going to hit speed-dial #3, I remembered that the phone was disconnected, I had deleted her phone number already and she wouldn't be there to answer. That was a hard moment of reality.
The next Saturday I went to her house to pull together all her clothes, shoes and purses and donate them to Goodwill. She was constantly buying clothes, so it was oddly easy and even almost funny to finally clean out the closet. Once everything was ready to be hauled out, I decided to open her safe to look for her car title. Inside amongst the papers and mementos were her engagement and wedding rings from when she was married to my Papa. In her will, she had stated that she wanted me to have them. The two rings are welded together and a combination of gold and silver with little diamonds. It is a beautiful design and I hadn't seen her wear them since Papa died when I was 10. I put the rings on my right hand and that is when I broke down. I slouched to the floor of her closet and bawled. I cried as I stared at her rings on my hand. I felt that with those rings I had a little piece of her back in my heart, but I continued to weep because I knew that the spot in my heart that was hers would never be full again.
After three months, I feel like this should all be easier now. Grammy lost so many people throughout her life but was able to carry on. I feel so weak in comparison to her as I am having trouble getting over losing just one person...her.
I'm afraid that the people in my life, who have been so loving and understanding, will get tired of listening to me. This has never been confirmed, as my friends have been and continue to be so wonderful and supportive. However, I don't want anyone to think, even in the back of their mind, that I am that sad, broken record that can't get over herself. I don't want to be a woman who can't get over a loss, no matter how much it changes her world. I feel weak enough on the inside without worrying that the world sees me that way too.
I have needed to write this for a long time now, but whenever I have sat down to do it, my thoughts become a jumbled mess within the first few sentences and the tears start almost immediately. I haven't been able to write anything else, either, and writing has always been a healing outlet for me. By finally getting this all out on paper and then on the computer screen, I am hoping it will help me at least inch forward toward moving on. I am not sure why I need to make this writing public on this blog. I guess I need to get it all out and into the universe so it doesn't stay inside of me and become overwhelming. I need to be able to think that now someone has heard what is in my heart and what I am unable to verbalize. Writing this has been both the easiest and the hardest thing
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