My last living grandparent passed away on Thanksgiving Day this year.
My grandma spent her final days on this earth in her own bed, in her own home, surrounded by those that love her and I was fortunate enough to be counted among them.
I sat with her for countless hours and listened to her talk. When she couldn’t talk anymore I sat with her and held her fragile hand. But what you might dismiss as a sad story is actually one of kindness, thankfulness, and gratitude.
She was born right before the start of The Great Depression in the late 1920’s. Growing up deep in the heart of the south, during a time of poverty our generation can barely imagine, formed a lot of who she was. She was tough, frugal, and unapologetic.
She was brutally honest and often hurt my feelings when I was a kid.
The latter of which I used to argue and rail against to no avail. I was angry with her for being her for many years.
As I got older I distanced myself from her but I never stopped loving or respecting her. I had my own problems and became self-absorbed in my pain and healing. I was busy. I didn’t live close by. I moved away after leaving an abusive relationship. All of these things, while valid, added up to years of little contact with my grandma.
We spoke sporadically on the phone over the years. I took for granted our relationship and her time here. Despite it all she was diligent in sending cards for every holiday, every birthday, and every time she wanted me to know I was loved. I saved those cards even when I was mad at her and ungrateful for them, even when I quite possibly didn’t deserve them. It’s a pretty big stack now.
Last summer I learned that she was in heart failure and had been given one or two years to live.
She had always suffered from cardiac disease, along with 83.6 million other adults in America, but I assumed her heart would keep on ticking. Instead, she went misdiagnosed for nearly 20 years and a life-saving heart valve surgery was not done while she was still young and healthy enough to survive it. Now it was too late and her heart was in fact going to stop ticking. It was only a matter of time.
I called my grandma as soon as I found out. We resumed our conversation as if it had never ended. Only this was not the sharp-tongued grandma I remembered from my childhood. This was a softer, kinder version. This was the grandma that sent me cards my entire life, showed up at my college graduation, and always joked that I was her favorite granddaughter because I was the only one she had. And, as she reminded me that I was loved and prayed for over the years, a tear of pure love made its way down my cheek. I missed her deeply and everything in me screamed that I had to see her before it was too late.
Please let me get there, I prayed.
Due to money and distance it became obvious that seeing her would be no easy task. She assured me that we could make do with phone calls but my heart twisted and turned at the thought of not seeing her again. Even then, even when palliative care nurses began coming to her house to care for her on a regular basis, I thought I would have more time to get there. So I resumed my life and sent her a few cards to try and give back a tiny part of what she had given me.
With the Thanksgiving holiday growing near I received a call informing me that time was perhaps not so abundant. My grandma had bronchitis and this new development was putting her quality of life in a fast downward spiral. I booked a plane ticket and fretted that my trip was planned too far out.
On our last phone call, a Sunday in November, it was clear her health was declining. She was out of breath and struggling to talk and keep her balance. She was now taking morphine and this set off alarms because I knew from my grandpa’s, her husband’s, battle with Alzheimer’s that morphine is often administered during end of life care.
As the call ended she said something I will never forget, she said she saw her husband, deceased now for 12 years, looking for her. I asked her to explain and she said he was standing in a crowd of angels and looking through the crowd trying to find her.
Whether this was a vision, a dream, or real didn’t matter to me. I hung up the phone with chills on my arms and tears in my eyes.
Please let me get there, I prayed.
About a week before my scheduled trip I received another phone call. They thought she was almost gone the day before and it would happen at any minute. I raced in a complete panic to change my flight and leave the next morning. I was finally going home.
When I pulled up to her familiar street and turned into the familiar driveway of her familiar house, my heart flooded with gratitude. I rushed inside and gave her a hug. She was up, sitting in a chair and talking. I made it.
Over the next few days we talked and laughed like time and age had never separated us. I helped my Aunt, her primary caregiver, take care of her. I listened to her talk, greeted her visitors, and spent every second soaking up the presence of this changed woman. She spoke of old memories, regrets, and her faith. I marvelled at her ability to have faith and find laughter in the face of death.
This was a woman with a failing heart that was stronger than almost any heart I had ever seen.
She had survived the deaths of her husband, her grandson, her friends, and her brothers and sisters. She had survived The Great Depression. She had survived loss, heartbreak, and tragedy. Then, when faced with her own mortality, she looked inward and faced herself. She righted wrongs and became softer, kinder. She proved that it is truly never too late to change. Professor Ed Latessa elaborates this point in his webinar stating that;
“It’s not easy to change behavior. If you think it is, try changing your own.”
It was this transformation that inspired me to once again look inward at my own life and behavior.
After a few days her energy suddenly decreased. I had been there to witness what hospice nurses referred to as a surge in energy or a rally that sometimes occurs prior to death. It’s a last hurrah of sorts. She was excited to see me and all of her visitors and this gave her a temporary boost. I can’t tell you how grateful I am that I was there to see it. But, like any last hurrah, there is a goodbye and it became time for hers.
This woman that lived almost to the age of 90, this survivor, and my favorite and only grandma was one day too tired and in too much pain to get back up out of her bed. So I pulled up a chair and held her hand.
I talked to her until she could no longer respond and after she could no longer wake up. I told her over and over again how thankful I was for everything, how much I loved her, and that it was okay for her to rest.
One of her last gestures before she slipped into a coma-like state was to reach for my hand. She had barely spoken or moved in a couple of days and still she managed to grab my hand and pull it to her lips and give it a kiss. Then she reached for my face and did the same.
How do you measure the value of a moment like that?
With gratitude. Endless gratitude.
On Thanksgiving Day, 12 years after her husband passed on the same holiday, she took her last defiant breath and went to meet him. My heart was irrevocably broken. But as she exhaled, I inhaled the strength and beauty of a soul I can only hope to one day make proud.
I gained so many things to be thankful for this holiday season in the lessons that can only be taught by the darkness of death and the light of the living.
Goodbye, grandma. Thank you.
Stephanie is a writer, survivor, and advocate.
You can find her on Twitter.
Read more on her blog.
See Stephanie’s Previous articles on Kindness Blog.
Reblogged this on The Militant Negro™.
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Hey 🙂 Thank you for sharing.
Best, Mike.
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My pleasure Mike, Happy Holidays.
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Thank you!
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I am in tears. I don’t know if I can write. I never made it to say goodbye to my Dad because of my life. The end for him was such a shock and a whirlwind I had no time to get there. Today is his birthday, the first since his passing that he is not here. He died all wrong, in a hospital as directed by family who were supposedly looking out for his best. They refused to hear truth and allowed him to suffer. I am moved SO moved that your Grandma died the way we all are meant to with Loved Ones around and in her own bed. I am sending you BIG (((HUGS))) amongst my tears. ❤
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Amyrose (beautiful name, btw), Thank you so much for reading and for sharing your story. I am certain that you can indeed write! 🙂 I am so very sorry to hear about your Dad. Happy Birthday to him and much love to you during your time of grief. BIG HUGS right back to you. ❤
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Thank you, Stephanie! Today has been challenging for me. I really have not been grieving to be truthful, but instead celebrating LIFE as my Dad would wish me to. Today has been a different story … tears and just knowing how final death is. Bless you for you kindness to me!!! ❤
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Beautiful
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Thank you so much George!
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Stephanie, I am sorry for your loss. She reminds me of several of my wife and my relatives. Honest to a fault, but would lend the shirt off their backs. Thanks for sharing her and your story. Keith
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Thank you so much for your kind words Keith. Thank you for reading and commenting. ❤
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Thank you for sharing this love story with us. It touched my heart so deeply tears of joyous connection flow.
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Thank you Russ, I’m honored that it touched your heart. It means a lot to me to know that someone connected with the emotions I tried to convey.
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So moving, beautiful! ❤
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Thank you Mandy! ❤
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A beautiful story. I took car of my father for most of his last seven and a half years as he declined into dementia, until he needed nursing home care. One day they called and said he was unresponsive. He had a DNR (Do Not Resuscitate) and I arrived at the ER 15 minutes before he died. Perhaps he knew I was there. If so, perhaps he remembered who I was. Still, I was important to be there. Thank you for this sharing.
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Thank you for sharing, Bob. I am very sorry for your loss. The hospice nurses kept telling me that hearing is the very last thing to go. I like to believe that’s true, and I do. I’m so glad you got to be there for your father.
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I also lost contact with my grandmother for many years. After she died, I thought that with her gone, all my family history was gone too. But I soon found through genealogy programs (sorry if this sounds like an ad for Ancestry, it really isn’t) more about her than I ever knew of her in life. I discovered the neighborhoods she grew up in, houses she lived in, that she had been an orphan, where she met her husband and probably the most poignant was the discovery of the death certificate of a stillborn birth. I cried when I found it. There is still so much to learn.
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Hi Cascade. Thank you for sharing! It’s amazing all the ways people continue to live on. I’m happy you were able to learn more about your family history and find some comfort. 🙂
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Thank you for sharing your story, beautiful.
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Thank you so much for this, Stephanie. I am sorry for the loss of your amazing grandmother, but am so glad you were able to be there for her. It is a privilege to be with someone you love when they pass.
My 91 year old dad and I are caretakers for my mom, 84, who is dying of metastatic breast cancer. She is in Hospice care and on morphine and is very comfortable in her hospital bed in her bedroom. She sleeps a lot, but still eats and enjoys chocolate especially. 🙂 We talk between naps, and I do what I can to help make her comfortable.
We have had the chance to say it all and declare our love for each other over and over again. I and Dad are resigned to the fact that she will slip away sooner than later, and go through the usual emotional ups and downs. We and all who know her and have loved being family and friends to her have expressed their love and care through phone calls, visits, flowers, meals, treats and just being there.
I am aware that there is a good chance that I won’t be holding her hand when she passes, but I do have the knowledge and comfort that we have declared our love and thanks a million times. I believe with all my heart and mind that we never lose each other; we will be all together in the next transition. I believe that our souls are so unique and precious that they never die, but go on. Love never dies, neither does family or friend connections.
Thank you again for this and letting us all know what a wonderful person your grandmother was.
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Dear Lulu,
Thank you so much for reading my story and for sharing yours. I’m very touched by your love for your Mom and what you shared. She is truly blessed to have a daughter like you by her side. I am sorry for your grief and send you nothing but thoughts of comfort. ❤
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very sweet and simple article! I had some beautiful moments thinking of her.
warmly from India
rahul
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Truly comforting to read!
My partner recently passed from cancer, but he was at home with his family…and after reading other stories about loved ones forced to stay alive in sterile hospital environment, I realize what a gift it is to be in a familiar surrounding and having a “natural departure”.
I have been recently reading more memories and books about grieving, trying to find something to assist me in, almost, rationalizing my grieving and loss. He was the love of my life…& it’s been incredibly challenging, so much that there are no words to even use.
But anyway, thank you for sharing. It put a smile on my face. 🙂
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