I have never been someone who emotes freely or instantaneously... if I read a story in the paper or if someone shares a story that is devastating or tragic, I will usually take and need time to internalize it before I let myself feel it. I don't know why I am that way, I just feel it. Maybe it's a defense mechanism, but there have been moments when I've wished that I could just burst into tears or when I've hoped that my face expressed the sentiment that should have matched the situation; for myself and for the other people involved. If I had a better idea of why I feel this delayed reaction of emotion, I think that I would have a much stronger grasp on living in the moment instead of holding things in and then having a hard time letting them go...
I'd never seen someone die before, not in real time, but last night I did. I watched my maternal grandmother take her last breath and as I did, I found myself, once again, holding the feelings inside. My Grandma was old and she had a series of health problems that would have made chemo look rather easy to some. The last couple of years had been particularly hard on her and on my Grandpa and on my mom and aunts as they helped and as they had to watch her struggle to walk, to move and to deal with the symptoms from ailments that would have already taken a lesser woman. My Grandma was farmstock I tell you; that woman's heart could have given Paul Bunyan's a run for the money and even last night, even after she stopped breathing which, we were told was normal, her heart continued to beat slower and slower until she passed away. As I was driving home from the hospital today, early this morning, I thought about all of the times that I'd been at my grandparents house including the most recent visit with my kids a few weeks ago and I started smiling, thinking of all of the holidays that my cousins and aunts and uncles and parents spent eating huge meals, opening presents, playing in their backyard, sitting around their dining room table playing cards... my Grandma didn't mess around when it came to cards and I was doing a mental inventory of how many years of my childhood and adolescence were wrapped up in the idea that I had all four of my grandparents until I was 27 years old and up until yesterday, I still had three; now at 41. My children and my niece and nephews will have memories of great-grandparents and in the world today, that in and of itself is unusual. I was thinking of all the dirty jokes that my Grandma used to tell me and how it took me awhile to "get" some of them, but how she'd always crack herself up telling them. And how, no matter what, no matter the time of year or how badly she felt, she never missed sending a birthday or holiday card to any of us or our children. She never forgot, never made an excuse; she just did it. And I've saved those cards, every single one and I made a promise to myself that I will go through and put them all together and every year from now on, maybe on my birthday or on hers, I am going to take them out and look at them. She'd like that I think or maybe I'll just buy a new deck of cards and break it out every year instead. She loved Crazy Eights just as much as Gin Rummy and she took the whole thing seriously...
But I didn't cry, I still haven't cried and I don't know why. It's not that I didn't feel sad or sorrowful; I did and I do right now as I sit here. But there was something comforting about being there, about stroking her hand for a few minutes and in kissing her cheek, in saying goodbye that gave me and everyone else in the room a sense of well being and of peace. My Grandpa leaned over and spoke to her at one point and she opened her eyes a bit more; she knew and she could hear him. A marriage of 67 years is a balance of spoken and unspoken words I suppose. I heard him say two things that will stay with me. He was holding her hand and he said softly, "I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you" and then he kissed her cheek. Later, he was holding her hand again and he said, "I won't be far behind you." I'd never really seen that kind of interaction between my grandparents, but now that I have, I know that it will stay with me forever. There is much to be said for the kind of love that endures "all things."
My Grandma was a robust, loud, strong, funny woman with a big laugh. She baked the best stuff and every Christmas, for many years, before it was too much work for her, she'd bake a huge platter for each family of all the best treats and when I told her that I loved the M&M cookies the most, she'd always make extra of those for me on our platter and no, I wouldn't share them. My Grandma never struck me as the kind of woman who had regrets and if she did, she sure as hell didn't show them or say anything to that effect out loud. And I know, looking at my mom and my aunts that passed down a quiet kind of strength that I hope I have and that I see in my siblings and in my cousins too, maybe even in our children. A definitive matriarch, my Grandma helped define me as a woman as she did all of the women in our family, in some way or shape.
Her blood pressure dropped over the course of the hour and a half that I was in her hospital room and her breathing became labored and then, longer intervals of time between her breaths and then, she was gone. It was calm, peaceful, no fanfare, no frills, no bargaining or desperation, no sense that she was taken before her time or that there were things left unsaid. She just went. And as I pulled into the driveway last night and as I went up the stairs, I went and checked on my boys, each one and I thought about the day when, God willing, they will see their mother pass, will bury their mother and I thought about my mom and it wasn't morbid, it wasn't frightening, it was just... life. I think my Grandma would have said the same thing. Why worry about something until there is something to worry about? And even then, if you can't change it?
For the family, for my family, for my children, as a generation continues to close down and the flames of the torches are passed on, I hope all of you know how much you mean to me and how much she meant to me. I haven't known a life without my grandmother and, now, it is another experience that she creates for me with her death... I've loved having you as a part of my life and I will miss you, but I will think of you often, in many ways and I will see you in the faces of my family and in every M&M cookie that I bake and eat. It is a gift that I will be able to think of you and that my kids will be able to as well. Goodbye Grandma, Rest Well... We love you very much.
Dorothy Maude Alexander
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