this took a while

just wanted to share a story that is very special to me about my grandmother who passed away in may of 2005.



Tuesday, May 16, 2006

this took a while....

My grandmother (mom-mom) died on May 10, 2005. It took me a whole year to write this entry. I'm not sure if the reason it's taken me so long is conscious, subconscious emotional restraint, or just never taking the time to actually do it, though, it's been on my mind to do since that date.

Mom-mom was not like my second mother, she WAS my second mother. It's difficult to even describe relationships you have with close people because of the fact that their being is totally ingrained and meshed with your own. There were times in my youth when I lived with my grandparents. There were times when they practically lived with my immediate family. Listing my memories of mom-mom would take the amount of time it took to live them. The love she shared with the family is immeasurable.

She grew up on Hope Street in Fishtown and dated a boy with no car back in the 1940's. Mom-mom said he was cute and came from a good family. This boy would treat mom-mom to dates - movies & ice cream. His best friend would help out by driving him and mom-mom on their dates. On one particular date, his friend's car got a flat tire. Mom-mom's date, being the gentleman he was, got out of the car to help his friend with the flat tire. Mom-mom waited alone in the backseat until suddenly, her date's friend slid into the seat with her. He told her to dump the zero and get with the hero. Mom-mom quickly considered the situation and knew the guy with the car was a much better choice. It wasn't long after that, the two eloped and started their lives of sixty-one years together.

Shortly after their marriage, my grandfather was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska during the Korean War. He moved there and a few weeks later, mom-mom took a small jet plane to meet him there. She was scared to death. She had never been off of Hope St! My grandparents lived in Alaska for a few years and it was there that their oldest son (Katie's dad) was born.

Mom-mom wrote about her time in Alaska. She wrote about how the town they lived in was only two blocks long and how the temp would get so low that her hand had once frozen to a doorknob. She also wrote about the house fire they survived and the moose their friends had hunted and eaten. (She had pictures to prove it!)

Soon enough, the new family moved back to Philadelphia and created a large family of five children and nine grandchildren.

In the later years, mom-mom developed a viscious cough and was diagnosed with emphasema. In the summer of 2004, she developed lung cancer, shortly after my grandparents finally moved out of Oxford Circle, where they spent many many years, and into Fox Chase.

In October of 2004, mom-mom began to experience symptoms of the cancer, like weakness, and began treatments. A few weeks before that, she had begun to pack suitcases full of clean undergarments and socks, and stock the freezer with prepared meals. She had always handled the money and bills so she taught my grandfather how to write checks and cook a few meals. I still wonder if she knew.

It was a rough few months up until Christmas. My family had spent Thanksgiving at the nursing home with her. Even then, mom-mom said she was too young to be there.

At Christmas, she seemed to be getting better and was able to spend the holiday in her new home with her family. The first few months of the year, she was fairly stable. Around the end of February, her health began to go downhill with back to back hospital stays. By the end of April, mom-mom was beginning to "lose it."

She wasn't recognizing people. She referred to herself by her maiden name. She denied being married and cried out for her "daddy" to help her. It was heart-breaking. She was tearing off her clothes with extreme agitation.

Last year, Mother's Day was on May 8. That was the last day I saw her alive. About a week before, she finally entered hospice care. There was nothing more doctors could do and so the goal was to just make her "comfortable."

I remember seeing her that day. I've never seen anyone so sick. She laid there, totally non-responsive. Her breathing was slow and shallow. Her eyes were closed.

At the hospice, they give youa pamphlet to read about the stages of death. Everything I was reading, I had been seeing in front of my eyes with my grandmother.

My whole family visited her that day. She didn't respond or move for anyone. We were all just waiting.

At one point, I had an opportunity to be alone with mom-mom, along with my pop and his sister. I grabbed mom-mom's hands and told her I loved her. At that moment, her lips started to move a bit. Her hand pulled away from mine, and she managed to point to her heart and then to me. Then she lifted her arm and motioned for me to come close to her. I lowered my body into her arms and we embraced. I knew in that moment that she recognized me -- maybe not as myself -- but she recognized me as family, as love.

I've experienced a lot of people's death around me: friends, clients, family - but mom-mom is the first death of someone close to me that I've experienced in my adult life and that moment to say goodbye is one I will always cherish.

Upon leaving the hospice on Mother's Day last year, my family and I had dinner together. After dinner, my grandfather received a call from the hospice nurse basically saying, "this is it. you should come back as soon as you can." And that is what my entire family did, except for myself and my parents and brother. We had said our goodbyes and saw no point in belaboring that.

After spending that entire night and following day at the hospice with mom-mom, my family was physically and emotionally drained. The doctors were concerned, stating, "She's ready to die. Why isn't she? What is she waiting for?" She was able to see all her children and grandchildren. She heard from her son and his family in Florida on the phone. What else could it be?

Katie called me from the hospice to update me on the situation. No one in the family had been to sleep yet or left the hospice. I know mom-mom would never miss a family function. Could it be that she didn't want to die with her whole family around her? Katie and I agreed on this and suggested that the family go home, try to get comfortable, and rest. It was tough, but everyone took the suggestion, even pop.

Sure enough, at 5:00am on the morning of May 10, mom-mom passed.

What terrible pain it is to watch and wait for someone you love to die.

Two of my good friends watched their mother die this past Mother's Day. It was unexpected and shocking, yet still just as painful and traumatic to watch someone die over a time period of a few months.

It's also a similar feeling I get when thinking about the loss of my own mother. Of course, this is difficult for me to explain and even more difficult for others to understand because she is not dead. She is very much alive and she is still my mother and my father's wife. But after her stroke, she and my family have experienced such a loss that we deal with everyday. Things will NEVER be the same again and we grieve every day.

On the day before mom-mom passed, pop turned to us all and said...

"I know that when you look at your mother/grandmother, you see a very old and sick lady - bald and dying in that bed. But that's not how I see her. When I look at her, I see that beautiful young girl I took off of Hope Street. That same one that got off that plane in Alaska, and I knew I was the happiest man in the world."

Things did change a lot in their lifetime. Bad times, good times. Healthy times, sick times. Fun times, dull times. Their bodies changed. Their abilities to do things changed. Their health changed. But their feelings never did. If anything, they grew stronger. Even...through it all.

I pray to God everyday to give me this strength, to be grateful for what is here, to help me recover in times of loss, and to maintain in times of change and struggle. I pray for the strength to forgive and to be sorry. I pray for the patience to live the way it is and the courage to live the way it is meant to be.