Turning Point

I don't really know where to begin. My head is a mess today. Thoughts just can't seem to come out right or in an sort of normalcy. I'll see what I can get out.

Death....its something we all face at some point. As kids, death is something we don't really understand. I thought I did for a long time. I always thought that dealing with death would be easier as you get older, but in reality, its alot harder. I only wish I could be as nieve as I was when I was ten. Death was something I knew happened, but something that I kind of ignored. To me, the process of mourning a death became an obligation as a kid. I knew how the routine went. The day after the person died, mom would take us to get new clothes for the funeral. At a young age, this was something I actually looked forward too. An excuse to buy new clothes. Eventually, that excitment wore off over countless arguments in the dressing room about what I could and couldn't wear to a funeral. A good portion of the people in my family that have died, I really had no relationship with, so mourning was not something that effected me personally but if effected the rest of the family, which eventually effected me. The stress of a family member dying, planning the funeral, I found out makes people's ability to hold emotions very difficult. Yelling and screaming at eachother the day of a family members funeral was something that was not uncommon to me. So, I grew up thinking death was somewhat of an obligitory event for me.

Being a kid at a funeral or a wake is the most uncomfortable thing ever! Having to dress in clothes that aren't comfortable, and having to wear them all day. As far as behavior goes, one step out of line and your get pulled off to side by dad to the quitest scolding you've ever had. You are forced to stay in a buiding that, I swear, has old lady perfume seeping out of the walls. You are forced to say hello to a ton of people you've never met, and pretend like you are sad about the death of your family member but in reality, all you can think about is the stupid pantyhose you're wearing that are two sizes too big that you have to pull up every second. yes, you're mother bought them for you and dare you complain about anything on that day, so you deal with it. To top it all off, here comes the moment at the wake that is the most uncomfortable. You have no real connection with the person who died, but the rest of yoyr family does, so the moment come when you have to approach the casket. Seeing a dead body for the first time is scary for a kid. I remember at my step dads mom's funeral, who I didn't care for to say the least, the moment mom forcibly whispers, "Ashley, go up and say goodbye to Nana!!!" Are you kidding me? By myself??? You want me to walk up to the dead body of an old woman, who I was not fond of, and go say "goodbye' in front of all these other old people (who's funerals I might be at too) and say goodbye. To be perfectly honest, I don't really care that she died. She was mean and she hated me. Now you want me to act like I'm sad and start sobbing because I'm her "granddaughter"??? But do I do it? of course. I try to pretend like I am heart broken that this women died because I know if I don't, my stepdad will be upset.

Thats wear I get my idea of death. A whole weekend of uncomfortable clothes, smelly old people and the fear of being yelled at for talking. I thought, when I get older, its not going to be like this. I won't be treated as a child and this will be much easier. Well, I was wrong.

As I sit here, knowing that soon I need to go shopping for funeral clothes, there is no excitment to find in it. In a way, I kind of look forward to the funeral though. Saying my final goodbyes, which in way I did a few weeks ago while she was still alive, but now actually being a funeral in which the death of the person effects every part of my heart.

I knew it was coming months ago. I just got this feeling one day that I need bond with her a little more. She was the last grandparent I had and I didn't want it to end without some kind of connection. So I started visitng her a few times a week. Bringing her presents, having lunch with her, and just listening to her tell stories. That was the best, her stories. She had tons of them.

Flash forward a few months to this past summer. She gets hospitalized a half dozen times for everthing in the book. One night, when she had been put into a nursing home, Chris and I went to see her. I felt God tugging at my heart to read His word to her. Now making this step would not be easy for me. God was not something that Grandma and I had ever talked about. Thankfully Chris was there to help. We started chatting and she mentioned how she didn't like her room because she couldn't see outside and how she loved seeing the sunsets. Now that made my heart sink. Sunsets are my weakness. I melt every time I see a multicolored filled sky at dusk. Finally, something I knew I could take away as a memory of her. Sunsets. My favorite, her favorite, it was perfect. From that day on, I was reminded of her with every sunset I saw. I would take pictures of them on my phone and show her because I knew she couldn't see them. The moment she said that, Chris took the opportunity and read her psalm 19. " The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of His hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard. Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens he pitched a tent for the sun, which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavillion like a champion rejoicing to run his course. it rises at one end of the heavens and makes its circuit to the other; nothing is hidden from its heat." Again, it was perfect. She loved it and from that day on that became grandma's psalm. That night I went to a christian book store to find anything with that verse with the picture of a sunset. No luck. Be we did find a magnet with a beautiful sunset that said "sunsets are God's way of letting us know he is near." I bought it, she loved it. She kept it by her until she went home a few days later and the magnent was on her fridge. Without i doubt, that moment touched my heart deeper than anything in the world.

I had moment with her two days ago. It was beautiful. I was alone with her, and she was having a good day. Lots of strength and able to do things on her own. She was sitting in her wheelchair, all 50 lbs of her, putting her make up. It was later in the afternoon. She wasn't going anywhere, she just wanted to feel pretty. It came the point of her wanting to put earrings on. She was pretty shaky so I offered to put them on for her. She was beautiful. Less than 48 hours till her death and she still wanted to make herself look presentable.

Fast forward twenty four hours and she is not able to move, barely talking and drugged up on morphine to help the pain. I'm sitting next to her putting lip balm on her lips because they were sticking together which made it hard for her to talk. I knew the time was approaching. The most she would say, is that she wanted to go home. We told that is was okay and she needed to stop fighting. "Its okay grandma, go home." "Your work is done here," We will be okay"......all she would reply is "what do I do." She didn't know how to die. She wanted to. She was done fighting. But she didn't know how to go. I just kept praying that God would finally take her home. That was a moment that I realized that we REALLY aren't in control. She asked God to take her, she was ready, but God wasn't. She would go when He wanted her to. A few hours later, when the rest of the family got off the there flights from California, Me, Chris, my cousins Amy and Noah, were sitting in her room. Amy and I holding each of hands, casually talking about memories from our childhood that we had with grandma, when God decided it was time to go. She was incoherent. The medicine had made her a vegetable but the nurses said that the last thing to go would be her hearing. So we talked about grandma's old house, her cooking (which was amazing) and Amy insists it was the moment we mentioned her faboulous angel food cake with chocolate frosting we were raving about, is the when she finally went. I knew right away. She had stopped breathing and her hands got cold in mine. I asked Amy to see if she could feel a pulse. With no luck we called in my aunt, and a few minutes later she turned us and with a slight smile she said 'she's gone." That was what she wanted. To be surronded by her family, in her own bed, without any pain. I didn't cry right away. In fact, I was a little jelous of grandma. In that moment I knew she was starring face to face with her creator. No pain, no worries, she was in heaven. I was happy for her, but that made me look at death lot differently.

In that moment, death no longer became a burden, it was beautiful. She was home. All that was left was a tired old shell of a body that had given birth four times, raised for rambumctious daughters, 5 grandchildren and a great- grandson. Her work WAS done. Later that night before they came to get her body, I stood at stared at her. I had just shared THE most imortant moment in someones life....their death, with the person who helped create me. She was a shell. There was nothing left. You could see the emptyness of her soul from her body. It was turning point in my life that I will never foreget.

So now, the mourning process begins. I'm not sure how it's supposed to go. One minute I'm fine and the next I can't hold back my tears.

She left me the ring that her mother had given her when she died. She never took it off. She had it on when she died. That was hard to accept. A part of me wants to wear it every moment, but another part of me feels it's too precious to take out of the box. Whats funny is that my grandma and I have the same size fingers. She used to wear it on her left index finger. Amazingly, thats the only finger it fits on me. I don't know if I'm ready to wear it yet.

The hardest part of all this is seeing my mom. She spent the past 3 weeks with her. She took care of my grandma from the day she got home from the hospital till she died. My grandma's life was in her hands. Mom described the experience to that of taking care of a newborn baby. Grandma could even go to the bathroom without my moms help. The part that got me the most was the night she died when after the funeral home came to get her body, we were all just getting ready to leave. Mom was walking around the house putting things away. Someone told her not to worry about cleaning up, that we would take care of it the next day. She replied "just because she's not here, doesn't mean her house has to be a mess." A few minutes later, we were walking out and I turned around at looked at her. She was the last one to come out the door, suitcase in hand and tears rolling down her face. She was leaving the only thing she knew for the past month. Grandma needed her to live, now she was no longer of use. The woman that consumed her every moment of every day, no longer needed her. She sacrificed so much to be there for her. I didn't see her for almost a week because she spent the days at work and nights with grandma. Her work was done too. No one else in my family really recognized her sacrifice but me. My mom has three other sisters that we capable of taking care of her but instead that decided to go on vacation to Calafornia (which mom was supposed to go on too, but decided to stay home to take care of grandma). Se sacrificed her family, her job, and most of all her dignity. The stories of the things she had to do would make anyone want to throw in the towel. It was literally like taking care of an infant. As we left the house, mom and I were walking down the hallway, and I put my arm around her and said "you did good." "Thanks" she said tearfully. At that moment had an image of 40 years from now that that person might be me someday. I might be that woman helping my mother bathe herself, helping her put on her makeup, and being there when she dies. I would want nothing more than to do that for my mother. She set an amazing example of what sacrifice looks like. That bond between mother and daughter is so unique that in that moment was made so real to me.

This weekend isn't over. The wake is tomorrow and at this point I'm not sure how I'm going to feel. Just when I think I've cried it all out, I have an image that makes it all come back. I can't even make it through this blog without tearing up. I think its time to be done...