I am very proud that I was related to my Grandma Shirley.
I'm proud it was her that I inherited my "No one is going to tell me what I can and cannot do" attitude from her.
When we were at their house for Christmas Eve, Drew said he wouldn't have even known that she had arthritis unless I had told him. My Grandma was never a complainer, never let anyone feel sorry for her. She never let the fusing of the bones in her wrists bother her, never let anyone or anything control her.
I never once saw my Grandma smoke, nor did I ever see a trace of it in her house. But the smell of her cigarettes was the only smoke smell I could stand, because I didn't know it was smoke until I was about 14. I always thought that, mixed with Beautiful perfume, was just how my Grandma smelled.
When they put her in the hospice the first time, she decided that she still had things to do and that she wasn't going to die just yet. The two weeks she was back home she had to be on 8 liters of oxygen an hour, and she called the hose that connected her to the unit that was plugged into the wall her "leash." The doctor told her not to go into the kitchen when the oven was on, and we joked about her going in there anyway (cause Gramps can't cook to save his live) and blowing up.
I saw her without makeup one once my entire life; two weeks ago when we went to see her in the hospice. She refused to let my brother, sister, and I know how sick she was. She just made jokes about why she seemed so confused, "This cancer shit must have gotten to my brain. Or maybe it's the drugs, they've got me just looped up and high as a kite on morphine you know." But it was ok, cause she said the morphine made her rheumatoid arthritis pain go away, and her hands didn't hurt for the first time in years.
The hardest thing so far was yesterday, when I went golfing with my aunt, uncle, and dad. While my dad and his sister were in the bathrooms, my uncle asked me if I'd gone to see my grandma since the two weeks before. When I said that I hadn't, he looked at me sadly and just said, "Don't."
She hasn't been gone even 12 hours and I already keep thinking I see her. Not how she looked the last few weeks, but my Grandma Shirley from 10 or 15 years ago. When she was still running around getting her nails and hair done, picking us up, playing "This little piggy," on our toes after we had an Epic Bubble Bath (she did not limit the amount of soap we poured in and would let the bubbles come up to our chins), and sassing everyone at her work into buying my Girl Scout cookies.
There's no anger about this. No blame. No why did this happen. My grandma smoked for 50+ years. She didn't stop after she got and defeated (more like round house kicked in the face) breast cancer 15 years ago. She smoked after they took out the tumors and her lymph nodes. She had no melanocytes or leukocytes or machrophages to eat the cancer cells that sprouted in her lungs and moved to her liver.
There's just slight confusion and amazement. How she could go from JUST FUCKING FINE at Christmas, to not feeling well in April, to in the hospice two months later, to back home feeling better, then down hill so fast she was gone two weeks after that.
My poor Gramps is going to die of a broken heart.
This is the first death I've ever experienced. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do.
I'm proud it was her that I inherited my "No one is going to tell me what I can and cannot do" attitude from her.
When we were at their house for Christmas Eve, Drew said he wouldn't have even known that she had arthritis unless I had told him. My Grandma was never a complainer, never let anyone feel sorry for her. She never let the fusing of the bones in her wrists bother her, never let anyone or anything control her.
I never once saw my Grandma smoke, nor did I ever see a trace of it in her house. But the smell of her cigarettes was the only smoke smell I could stand, because I didn't know it was smoke until I was about 14. I always thought that, mixed with Beautiful perfume, was just how my Grandma smelled.
When they put her in the hospice the first time, she decided that she still had things to do and that she wasn't going to die just yet. The two weeks she was back home she had to be on 8 liters of oxygen an hour, and she called the hose that connected her to the unit that was plugged into the wall her "leash." The doctor told her not to go into the kitchen when the oven was on, and we joked about her going in there anyway (cause Gramps can't cook to save his live) and blowing up.
I saw her without makeup one once my entire life; two weeks ago when we went to see her in the hospice. She refused to let my brother, sister, and I know how sick she was. She just made jokes about why she seemed so confused, "This cancer shit must have gotten to my brain. Or maybe it's the drugs, they've got me just looped up and high as a kite on morphine you know." But it was ok, cause she said the morphine made her rheumatoid arthritis pain go away, and her hands didn't hurt for the first time in years.
The hardest thing so far was yesterday, when I went golfing with my aunt, uncle, and dad. While my dad and his sister were in the bathrooms, my uncle asked me if I'd gone to see my grandma since the two weeks before. When I said that I hadn't, he looked at me sadly and just said, "Don't."
She hasn't been gone even 12 hours and I already keep thinking I see her. Not how she looked the last few weeks, but my Grandma Shirley from 10 or 15 years ago. When she was still running around getting her nails and hair done, picking us up, playing "This little piggy," on our toes after we had an Epic Bubble Bath (she did not limit the amount of soap we poured in and would let the bubbles come up to our chins), and sassing everyone at her work into buying my Girl Scout cookies.
There's no anger about this. No blame. No why did this happen. My grandma smoked for 50+ years. She didn't stop after she got and defeated (more like round house kicked in the face) breast cancer 15 years ago. She smoked after they took out the tumors and her lymph nodes. She had no melanocytes or leukocytes or machrophages to eat the cancer cells that sprouted in her lungs and moved to her liver.
There's just slight confusion and amazement. How she could go from JUST FUCKING FINE at Christmas, to not feeling well in April, to in the hospice two months later, to back home feeling better, then down hill so fast she was gone two weeks after that.
My poor Gramps is going to die of a broken heart.
This is the first death I've ever experienced. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do.
