Some days, like today, I find myself forgetting to be grateful for the simpler things in life. I find myself forgetting to be grateful for the people that I am so blessed to cherish, hold dear, and have in my life. I’ve had to remind myself a couple times today, in the midst of my mind getting carried away from me, that having these days is okay. That thinking selfish thoughts is okay. That missing someone is okay… as long as you find a way out of being hurt and angry.
As I’m sure all of you know, my family lost one of the greatest women in the world this past December and it’s been quite the transition. Last night, or this morning rather, I finally fell asleep sometime between the hours of 4 and 5 a.m. In this time my subconscious mind wanted to remind me that I miss my grandmother. In my dream, my grandmother came home from what seemed to have been an exceedingly long vacation and my entire family waited in front of her house as she pulled up anticipating her getting out of her car and giving each of us hugs. I hugged her, she said something about a surgery, and then we all sat on her porch in her beloved white rocking chairs just shooting the breeze. Catching up. Something that we always did… one of the few things that seemed to still be constant in my family.
I’m not sure what exactly tore me from this happiness, but I woke up in tears. I needed that hug. I needed her accent. I needed her laugh, smile, and presence. When things like this happen, I’m convinced that it’s the people that we love coming to check on us to tell us they see our current struggles and they want to remind us that these struggles are only temporary.
So why would I be so angry at this reminder? Because like getting the joyous unique experience of living next door to my grandparents and having a special bond with them from day 1 for about 22 years, I (alongside the cousins of mine that live here in Texas and the rest of my family) got the agonizing experience of watching someone so strong go from so happy to so miserable and deteriorating right in front of our eyes. Waking up in happy tears this morning quickly turned into angry tears. Questioning tears. Not angry at any God of any religion, not angry at doctors, not angry at her, but angry at the unfairness that was the last few weeks of her life.
Before being told that her cancer had quickly spread and taken over her entire body (after being told only three weeks before that she was in remission), she was the rock that held my family together as my grandfather laid in a hospital bed for moments we were certain were going to be his last. She went from being so happy to so depressed quickly. Something that sits in the back of my mind was the night that I was told that she was depressed. That the doctor diagnosed her manic depressive (which I believe was later determined to be a misdiagnosis, but a common misdiagnosis when lung that turns into blood and bone cancer is involved). I remember driving to my apartment bawling. I remember making the decision that was me needing to go home and be with family.
As glad as I am that I made that decision and spent the next weeks with my family, I live every day remembering the pain that we all went through. At the time, I called it kinetic pain and that is still the only way I can describe it. It’s what it was. We were all anxious… expecting and none of us wanted to even mutter the worst of what was to come.
As I was in bed this morning, I found myself being angry at mental illnesses. Being angry that in my grandmother’s final week she went through a series of panic/anxiety attacks that would wake her up gasping for air. Angry at family that decided it wasn’t important to call her and wish her well. Angry at the sadness that engulfed all of us. Hurt by remembering what it is to watch someone breathing, pause, and then praying to God that they take another breath—that this wouldn’t be their last. Hurt by the pain that was forcing myself, six hours after I already told myself that I had to leave to do a presentation, to get up from my chair in the hospice, kiss my grandmother and tell her that I loved her for the last time, hold my breath and turn around to tell the rest of my family that I would see them soon, and walk out without looking back crying the whole way to my best friend’s apartment and then crying the entire six hour drive North with my best friend who was wise enough to bring tissues in her purse. Hurt by the pain of a telephone ringing in the morning and the silence of a mutual understanding of what the phone call was.
Then something remarkable happened after all this anger and hurt hit me. I began to be thankful again. For being able to have had such a loving grandmother always there for me- a grandmother who would call me just to talk about the British monarchy in the 1700s. Thankful for the shopping trips and the stories to tell for the rest of my life. Thankful for her love and sassiness. Thankful that as many times as she hugged me in my times of need and sorrow, I got to comfort her in the times most distressing to her. Thankful for the memory I got to share with her as I fed her pudding, scratch that cause she called it custard, (the first thing she had eaten in days) she let me play with her hair to ease an anxiety attack on her last night awake while I told her every little detail I could possibly think of about my best friend’s wedding that was coming up in just a few months—an event that she herself had been looking forward to since getting the pleasure of witnessing the initial engagement. Thankful for a woman who loved so deeply and so widely that even in her final hours awake she cared nothing of herself and only of others: constantly telling me that I could sit down and stop playing with her hair knowing I had a sprained ankle and two torn ligaments (even though I refused to give up my position… no one ever got to play with that woman’s hair) and asking my grandfather over and over how he was feeling, how his chemo was going, and reminding him that his strength was important now. Thankful for the love that she held so dear for my grandfather for the 55 years they were married so that it would radiate as him and I sat and talked to each other while she slept filling out her meal plans. “She said she wanted peaches tomorrow, but I know she likes pears too, so on my meal plan I’m going to write that I want pears because by golly she’s going to get both.” Thankful for the sweet, sweet guardian angel that my family gets to call their own.
I’m thankful for being broken down today because it has reminded me of my grandmother’s strength and love. It has reminded me that her strength and love lives within me and it’s something I should always cherish.
Not Put So Simply 