Do you not know what causes that?

We're alive.

Thank you all for the concerns and care.  My MIL passed away this weekend.  It was after about a 10 day stint in Hospice. She was living with my SIL and her family, who took amazing care of her.  She also opened her home to our family and her other sibling's family.  It was great to all be together through a really rough weekend.  It felt very different than the loneliness I felt when Grandma died.

We are sitting shiva until Wednesday.  Every night 7-9 p.m.

Race for the Cure

Hilary and Isaac are doing Race for the Cure this morning. I'm just sitting in the car crying. Grandma got diagnosed and had her mastectomy in October. She was amazed at how many people talked about breast cancer - why it was even on her soup can! She had no idea it was a one month long thing. She just thought she was out of the loop. I'm watching all the people in pink stream by my car. The signs. The t-shirts. The huge tufts of balloons and even some pink hair. I can't help but feel a bit defeated today in my own personal race for a cure.

The Ugly Plaid Shirt

I ran into a woman the other day, well, it was actually that I saw her from a distance.  But what I saw was this really ugly, plaid shirt.  My heart lept - Grandma!  It was only a second before I realized that it was not Grandma, but merely a shirt very similar to one that she wore frequently.  I don't know what originally attracted Grandma to this horrible shirt.  But she later came to love it for her doctor's appointments because it buttoned up the front and the back.  Here's a shot of it:

 

Hard to believe that they made two of these beauties... I also went back to check to see if my memory served me correctly.  It was the last shirt Grandma ever wore.  She wore it on Thanksgiving, a few weeks before she died.  The nice nurses at the Nursing Home dress her up for us...

Ike - One year later

This time last year, baby Ocho, finally had a name.  But only a few people actually got to hear it in person because her naming was in the middle of a hurricane here in Kentucky. A few brave souls made it over despite the flying trees and many more had damage to their cars or property trying to get there.  We still had a blast!  Though the resulting lack of electricity for more than a week wasn't so hot.  We stayed with grandma for a few hours but knew that her tiny condo was no match for us, so I took some of the kids back to the Galt house where the Lamaze conference had been.  I had to go as I was still pumping for Noa! Thankfully K was on paternity leave.  We're mostly healed from the storm with a few minor limbs still being worked on.

The Beginning of the End

September 10th last year was the beginning of the end for Grandma in my mind.  She had fallen in the middle of the night after getting up to take her pain medication and come to bed.  She wasn't willing to ask for help late at night and waited until nearly 10 a.m. to call my mother accidentally, meaning to call me. My mother freaked out and gave the phone to a nurse.  The nurse called me... I'm sure you see what a joke this sounds like.

Kevin agreed to drive me and Ocho (10 days old) to the Immediate Care Center after getting Grandma.  They confirmed the arm was broken.  We were lucky enough to get an appointment with the orthopod around 1 p.m. that same day.  We stopped at Dairy Queen and got her a soft serve cone, she loved it.  Then we went to the Galt House because I was the local chair of the Lamaze International Conference coming that weekend. I had to drop off something that seemed very important at the time, but now I've forgotten.

Grandma wore her thread bare night gown. I was in jeans.  Baby Ocho was going through her clothes really quickly.  I can't even begin to explain to you the comedy of errors this day was for us.  Noa/Ocho pooped through every single outfit she had.  Kevin wound up lining the bathroom floor at the doctor's office with paper towels to scrub her down. It was his birthday.  Grandma teased him mercilessly.

I was pump dependent at that point.  So no easy way to feed her.  All while trying to calm a naked baby with no food and convince my Grandma it wasn't a bother.  I finally got my wits about me to ask for an exam room for all of us so I could try to feed the baby.  I sat there dripping breast milk into her mouth.  Grandma shared with me for the 4,523 time about how she had no breast milk, little did I know it would be the last time I would hear that story.

Grandma was given a pretty purple cast.  This cast and this office was to be the scene of her last public outing before she died a few weeks later.  I didn't know that either.

We left that day, tired but glad we had it all under control.  The next morning I was thrilled to hear that Grandma had decided help would be a good thing and that she would allow Meals on Wheels to come.  A few weeks later, she'd decide her pain was unbearable and call and ambulance.  That ER doctor told me the truth for the last time for a long while, that Grandma had only weeks to live, that her cancer had spread through her entire body.  Her liver, lungs, skin, bone, stomach, intestines, etc... But that is a tale for another day.

 

In the ER

So Kevin is in the ER for some respiratory thing. (NOT the flu.)  We just spent about 4.5 hours in the waiting room.  I was glad when they told us we'd be coming to the back to see the doctors.  Then as I rounded the corners, I had the sudden flash of coming back to see Grandma.  In my mind, the beginning of the end started here.

Kevin will be seeing the same man who told me it was carcinomatosis and that Grandma had but weeks to months to live...  That was September 26th.  She died 78 days later on December 12th.  I remember walking into this very ER to tell her the news.  I snuck a quick text to many of my friends with the news before I even told Grandma.  I know that they would be thinking of me as I told her.

I know Kevin's news won't be of this nature.  But I am sad nonetheless and missing Grandma...

What a difference 38,000 miles makes...

138.  It's my favorite number.  For fun, Kevin will call or email, just to tell me it's 1:38 p.m.  If I were to buy a pick three, you'd be able to guess my numbers.  In fact, when Kevin and I were first dating, I asked him, the mathematician, what his favorite number was and he looked at me like I had two heads.  Before I could say so, he asked what mine was, "138!" I exclaimed. He quickly retorted, "That's twice 69!"

Last week I realized that my car was about to hit 138,000.  A quick calculation told me that would be on 4/15, grandma's birthday. And I was right.

I remembered hitting 100,000 miles. Grandma was in the car with me, around 1:30 p.m.  We were in J'Town taking Lilah's violin to get fixed.  I told her I'd gone 100,000 miles in my car and she was impressed.  It wasn't anything special. We'd been to lunch and were just hanging out, soon off to get the girls from preschool. Just any other day.

Today, just before 6 p.m. we were driving down a neighborhood street, taking Ada to gym class.  Kevin and Noa were with us.  He noted it and watched it turn over.  I couldn't help but think about Grandma, if only for a mile...

It's amazing was a difference 38,000 miles makes.  How many of those miles were spent going back and forth to see her?  To take her to this appointment or that?  How many miles did I log between my house and the nursing home?  How many miles was it from the cemetery to our house?  Some of my best times with her were in those last 38,000 miles.  Her last trip out of the nursing home was in my car, in those miles. This was the car I drove to be with her for the last time in.  And this was the car I drove to the funeral home in and back home.

I miss Grandma a lot. I wish I had another 38,000 miles to go with her...

Grandma

Today would have been Grandma's 87th birthday.  I had to actually stop and calculate how old she really would have been because she had a habit of "almost" being the next year older, the day after her birthday.

I can't really find the words to express how I feel a mere four months since she's been gone.  So instead, I'll post the eulogy I gave for her and the song that the kids sang...

I wasn’t sure I was going to speak today until I woke up after a fitful night of sleeping. Being a woman of many words, perhaps sharing some of them will help ease the raw feeling I have in my heart.
My grandma and I shared a lifetime together in the 37 and a half years I had with her.  She was the ultimate teacher, although sometimes more like a Catholic school nun wielding a hair brush rather than a ruler, but you get my drift.

I could regale you with stories of late night ice cream parties or evening spent playing cards when I was young. I could choose to share some memories from my teens, like some of the choice things she would say about my boyfriends, like that  she called all of them boy except for Shrimp but he deserved it. She even choose to call Kevin, my husband, boy, up until about 3 weeks ago, when she told him that he was now man.

Instead, I’m going to tell you of some of the sweet times I’ve shared with her in the last few years. Grandma always prided herself on her independence.  So when she had her mastectomy, she really truly believed that she’d just drive herself over to the hospital. I put my foot down and said absolutely not.
She was not prepared for the magnitude of which her life would change. She could no longer drive herself around as much, not that she didn’t try.  And goodness knows that anyone who knew she was driving would get a shiver down their spine.  So, in driving her around, I was able to spend time with her in the van.

She loved to look out the window and was always sharing stories of how the city had changed since she was a little girl. We’d talk about the kids or shared memories.  She’d even ask me to teach her things, but those were most questions centered around late night TV on HBO that she didn’t understand.
I also can’t tell you how grateful I was for lengthy waits at the doctor’s office.

The last appointment we went to together was about a month ago. She was so weak and ravaged with pain.  I brought a wheel chair and wheeled her upstairs.  She was sitting there leaning on her good arm and she whispered, “I never knew how heavy my head was…”  I leaned forward and enclosed her in my arms, “I’ll hold your head up.”  With her head on my shoulder I could smell her and I was remembering snuggling in bed with her as a child. I’m lost in my reverie when she says, “Stop or I’ll tell them you’re biting me.” 

She felt like she was taking up my time. Time she felt could have been better spent, no matter how much I told her that I truly enjoyed being with her.  When the time came for her to get more help and to move to a nursing home, she was blessed to share a room with her daughter, Carol.

The words that the children just sang remind me so much of the last few hours of Grandma’s life:

But it's dark and it's late
So I'll hold you and wait
'til your frightened eyes do close

Together, my mother and I were able to hold her hand through the last days and hours of her life. It was a privilege to be there with her in those last moments. And now that her eyes have closed for the last time, we’re still here in the morning.

My grandma inspired that mixture of tears and laughter, of love and strength.  Even as she wondered why she was still on Earth, what her purpose in life was, I always knew it was to be my grandma, and my children's great-grandma.  That purpose has not ended or changed.  She's still my grandma and she will always speak to me with her acerbic wit and wisdom.  Will always encourage me to follow my dreams and my heart.  Always encourage me to create a safe place for my children. To love my mother, even if she makes me crazy, and to strive to be very best I can be... 

Got her wheels taken away...

And no, I'm not talking about Hilary.

The nursing home called. Mom has a disregard for others and continually hits them with her electric wheel chair. They warned her about hitting the other residents with the chair.  She didn't listen.  So they called to ask/tell they were taking the chair away. I guess they expected my resistance. I said "Follow through is the key! You said you're going to take it away - do it."

They also wanted to know if I was bringing her cigarettes. I got a good laugh out of that one. No, not I. So she's also burning herself.  They told her she has to wear a smoking apron and go with an aide.  That lasted for 2 weeks but now she's smoking without the aide.  So they took her cigs.

Mom decried the punishments, "If you take my chair and my cigarettes. I'll have nothing left!"

When I heard this, I replied, "She's still got the big TV."

Going to Grandma's House

So the other day I said that I needed to go to Grandma's house to get the mail. Owen was in the car, as was Ada. Ada got very excited about seeing Grandma.  I said, "She's not there, Ada."

Owen says, "Don't you remember the funeral?  We sang a song and put the flowers on the bucket Grandmas was in..."

I corrected her, "Coffin."

Ada breaks down as we pull up into Grandma's parking lot, "I'll be good!  I won't be mean!  I want to see Grandma..."

Grandma doesn't live here anymore.