Today I bought my very first push-up bra.
I feel like a real woman now. Or something.

So last Friday my 95 year old great grandma got really sick; her fever was high enough that the nurses at her nursing home said she needed to be taken to a hospital. When she got to the ER, the doctor told her that her bowel had ruptured, and she was very quickly becoming septic... poisoning herself. The doctor said that there was a surgery that could be performed to go in and fix the rupture, but my grandma's chances of even coming out of surgery were very slim. Apparently, my grandma was still very lucid at this point, completely with it. She decided that she did not want the surgery, and would just like to go back to St. Joseph's Villa. She was put on a morphine drip for the pain, told everyone there that she was going to just go to sleep and for no one to worry about her.
The week before, she had told my cousin that when her time came, she would be ready for it. I think she's been ready for quite some time actually. For as long as I can remember she's been saying she never thought she would live as long as she had. She passed easily in her sleep that night.

Part of me is so sad. The idea that my grandma Dee isn't going to be there when I get home is hard for me to accept. In a very childlike mindset, I kind of assumed she would just live forever. Ever since my cousin's wedding that she was not able to attend I've had the idea that after my wedding Drew and I would go to her, me in my dress and him still in his tux. So she could see me. Not actually see me, as she was very blind; but she could make out white the easiest, so maybe she would have seen a white shape and known it was me and at least been able to feel the fabric of my dress. I know she'll still see me on my wedding, and now she will actually be able to see me; I just wont get to see her.
I'm so glad I was able to go see her and talk for over an hour when I was home for Spring Break. We talked mostly about my Grandpa Bill, who I never met. We talked about how they met and what they were like in their 20s and 30s. Grandma Dee told me they always wanted more kids than just my Grandma Shirley, but it never happened. It made me so happy that she was able to meet my cousin's son, her great-great-grandson. I hope taking care of all of us made up for the fact she only had one kid herself.
But part of me is glad for her. That she was so at peace with everything and is now reunited with her husband Bill (who died over 20 years ago) and daughter, my grandma Shirley - she has her whole family back and now the three of them can watch the rest of us. That's how my heaven works anyway. I came to that conclusion about it after my grandma Shirley died last summer.
I wonder if I will keep seeing Monarch butterflies everywhere, which I am convinced, in some way, had something to do with my grandma Shirley. I've never seen so many as I did the first months after she died. Only every one at a time, but I would see it on a weekly if not daily basis. I wonder if she was sticking around for me, because she and I were the closest - me being her only granddaughter for so long. Or if she was sticking around waiting for her momma. Which I never really thought about, not really, because they were both my grandma. The idea that grandma Shirley was tiny and small and a child is very foreign to me.
But now mom and dad and daughter are all together again.
It makes me wonder how my gramps is doing. He and my grandma Shirley were the epitome of marrying your best friend. They were each other's everything. I don't want him leaving me too, but at the same time I know he will be most at peace when he's reunited with his love.

But for now, my Gramps inherited what was left of my great-grandma's estate, which was still quite a bit from selling her house at the beginning of this year. The result of that was it being split up between all of Grandma Dee's grandchildren. My dad and aunt each got $10,000; my brother, sister, cousin Nathan, cousin Aiden (the cutest baby boy ever BTW), and I each got $5000.

Five thousand dollars.
Oh my god.
My dad called tonight to tell me, and I told him to turn around, put the money back in my parents account, and say that I NO LONGER OWE MONEY ON MY EDUCATION. We've already transferred the money I owe my parents (5 grand a year) for my 4 years of undergrad, this money will now cover my 5th year, and I have just enough in my savings account to cover year 6 as well.
That is so much money.
AND I JUST REMEMBERED!
I have another $8000 sitting in a college fund from my maternal grandmother. Which not only covers everything nicely, but leaves me with money to spare.
That changes everything.

Thank you Grandma Dee, for funding my education. You always said how proud of me you were and how I was going to be a wonderful Physical Therapist someday.