transmothra (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
transmothra) wrote2002-11-06 06:24 am
transmothra) wrote2002-11-06 06:24 am
this was a happy day, in a sad sort of way, one year ago today...
it was on this day, one year ago, that i threw my dying grandmother a birthday party. her real birthday's on the 20th (we're both Scorpios), but i Knew that she wasn't going to make it, because her body was really beginning to shut down; she lost her speech, and most of her physical functioning by that time, as well as most of her comprehension and possibly also her sight. so i stealthily tore off the dates on her calendar up to the twentieth. i brought in a couple dozen helium-filled balloons, most of which were red (her favourite colour). i made sure to put a number of them within reach, should she regain some muscle control and wish to play with any. put streamers up on the ceiling and walls, making a big 'X' above her, with the ends hanging down to her bed in the middle. put a big banner reading "Happy Birthday!" in big, happy letters on her wall facing her. turned on her favourite country music.
i even invited my mortal enemy (see hallowe'en post), who came and left early, before anyone else, the fucking pig bitch.
we gathered around her and fed her cake. well, a bite. she couldn't really swallow too well, poor dear sweet woman, lumière de ma vie. i read to her from the cards that were brought. when i read the card from my grandfather, her husband, i lost it. i showed her the picture i made for her, and read what it said ("Goodbye Paulyne - we will always love you"). completely lost it. gave her a very special hug.
she understood, i think. i will never forget, looking into those sad, brown eyes... she looked back at me, with a tear in her eye... oh christ i'm losing it now.
she died two days later.
i just don't know how i'm going to get through this week. it's all going to be coming back, all the painful memories. all the goodbyes. i never will forget that the hardest thing i've ever done in my life is tell someone that i was kind of alright with them dying. and then seeing it happen, right in front of me.
that last night, that terrible, dreadful night... i held her hand... i hogged her all day long and had to constantly remind myself to let others have some time by her side. poor sweet Grandmother... how i miss you now... i'll skip most of the details, but we had people in and out all day; people from Hospice. the supervisor (i think that's what she was) came and told us that that day was it, and to be prepared, because it was almost surely going to happen very very soon. we had to put wet swabs in her mouth, poor dear...
my grandfather, skilled denier that he is, poor guy, spent the entire day in the living room, acting as if everything was perfectly normal. watching tv, talking to people, making phone calls here and there. he was in his chair watching tv (great defiler of humanity) when it happened.
her breathing had been laboured for some hours. at some point, it had suddenly become more relaxed and slow. she was on oxygen by this time. (i swear to god, when the oxygen guy came to install the tank and train us, he said "now this is a thirty day supply" and stupid god damned fool me, always the best fuckup in the family, said (tho' quietly, shhh!) "it's okay, we're not expecting to be needing it after tonight". right there in her room! god damn me!! jesus, i have so many regrets with regards to that whole last precious and horrifying year...
anyways, i was holding her hand, and her breathing had become suddenly less laboured. i mentioned this, and a few minutes went by. then it happened. she took her final precious breath. i leaned into the baby monitor with great haste: "Grandpa, come here NOW please!" ...but it was too late. it was all over. it was all over. she was gone. and then one last, terrible Death-cough. i'm not going to talk about this any more. except to say these things:
- that immediately following her passing, i put on Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and sat in silence, gazing sadly lovingly at her, contemplating our amazing journey together. we laid a red rose............................ said goodbye to the wind..........
- that my friend Travis, my brother in spirit if not in blood, who had flown back up here to Ohio at my sobbing request (required not even the slightest pleading from me, that angel!), was at the door within minutes. he just had a feeling that he should come back over to the house. he showed up and i hugged him and cried and he was such a brother.
- that as the coroner's men were carrying her out, i waited, and when they came past me, i had a sudden thought, and i screamed out "aloha!", over and over again. she had a funny history with Hawaii. maybe this week i'll think to tell about it. crazy little bird.
- that that night, i went in by myself, and laid down on her bed, and cuddled her teddy bear, and wailed and wailed and wailed, like a baby, snatched from its mother...
o god. i miss her so terribly. she was the only one who was there all those years for me. solid.
and i find it so hard to reconcile my agnosticism with the deaths of all of those whom i love. Carl Sagan, my first truly Important hero (my first were tied: Stevie Wonder and Evol Knievel), to his dying moment believed firmly that there simply was nothing after death. i want to believe something, for chrissakes. but i cannot. it makes no scientific sense, and i'm not superstitious enough for any of that religious crap. i've been there and done that, and believe me, it's all a bunch of comfortable lies. some noble truths, no doubt, but as for the Great Philosophical Questions of all time, there simply are no solid answers.
enough with my horseshit. fuck this. this is why i hated it when my birthday came, because all it is to me now is just the last gas station, the last exit before Doom. not even two weeks after my 30th last year, and bam! Death. my own birth is a but a mile marker for Death. ain't all of 'em like that for everybody, though? how's that for symbolism?
The Universe, you can ram your stupid god-damned symbols right up your ass.
again, enough. how foolish and selfish of me. god damn. it's just that... damn, the pain of such an unbearable loss... if i had to give up all but one thing in my life, i'd choose to keep her. but now everything is too late. it's all over. she's gone. forever... forever. forever.
...i can't even see the monitor for the tears in my eyes. i'm going now. i don't know if i'll be back or not.
i even invited my mortal enemy (see hallowe'en post), who came and left early, before anyone else, the fucking pig bitch.
we gathered around her and fed her cake. well, a bite. she couldn't really swallow too well, poor dear sweet woman, lumière de ma vie. i read to her from the cards that were brought. when i read the card from my grandfather, her husband, i lost it. i showed her the picture i made for her, and read what it said ("Goodbye Paulyne - we will always love you"). completely lost it. gave her a very special hug.
she understood, i think. i will never forget, looking into those sad, brown eyes... she looked back at me, with a tear in her eye... oh christ i'm losing it now.
she died two days later.
i just don't know how i'm going to get through this week. it's all going to be coming back, all the painful memories. all the goodbyes. i never will forget that the hardest thing i've ever done in my life is tell someone that i was kind of alright with them dying. and then seeing it happen, right in front of me.
that last night, that terrible, dreadful night... i held her hand... i hogged her all day long and had to constantly remind myself to let others have some time by her side. poor sweet Grandmother... how i miss you now... i'll skip most of the details, but we had people in and out all day; people from Hospice. the supervisor (i think that's what she was) came and told us that that day was it, and to be prepared, because it was almost surely going to happen very very soon. we had to put wet swabs in her mouth, poor dear...
my grandfather, skilled denier that he is, poor guy, spent the entire day in the living room, acting as if everything was perfectly normal. watching tv, talking to people, making phone calls here and there. he was in his chair watching tv (great defiler of humanity) when it happened.
her breathing had been laboured for some hours. at some point, it had suddenly become more relaxed and slow. she was on oxygen by this time. (i swear to god, when the oxygen guy came to install the tank and train us, he said "now this is a thirty day supply" and stupid god damned fool me, always the best fuckup in the family, said (tho' quietly, shhh!) "it's okay, we're not expecting to be needing it after tonight". right there in her room! god damn me!! jesus, i have so many regrets with regards to that whole last precious and horrifying year...
anyways, i was holding her hand, and her breathing had become suddenly less laboured. i mentioned this, and a few minutes went by. then it happened. she took her final precious breath. i leaned into the baby monitor with great haste: "Grandpa, come here NOW please!" ...but it was too late. it was all over. it was all over. she was gone. and then one last, terrible Death-cough. i'm not going to talk about this any more. except to say these things:
- that immediately following her passing, i put on Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World" and sat in silence, gazing sadly lovingly at her, contemplating our amazing journey together. we laid a red rose............................ said goodbye to the wind..........
- that my friend Travis, my brother in spirit if not in blood, who had flown back up here to Ohio at my sobbing request (required not even the slightest pleading from me, that angel!), was at the door within minutes. he just had a feeling that he should come back over to the house. he showed up and i hugged him and cried and he was such a brother.
- that as the coroner's men were carrying her out, i waited, and when they came past me, i had a sudden thought, and i screamed out "aloha!", over and over again. she had a funny history with Hawaii. maybe this week i'll think to tell about it. crazy little bird.
- that that night, i went in by myself, and laid down on her bed, and cuddled her teddy bear, and wailed and wailed and wailed, like a baby, snatched from its mother...
o god. i miss her so terribly. she was the only one who was there all those years for me. solid.
and i find it so hard to reconcile my agnosticism with the deaths of all of those whom i love. Carl Sagan, my first truly Important hero (my first were tied: Stevie Wonder and Evol Knievel), to his dying moment believed firmly that there simply was nothing after death. i want to believe something, for chrissakes. but i cannot. it makes no scientific sense, and i'm not superstitious enough for any of that religious crap. i've been there and done that, and believe me, it's all a bunch of comfortable lies. some noble truths, no doubt, but as for the Great Philosophical Questions of all time, there simply are no solid answers.
enough with my horseshit. fuck this. this is why i hated it when my birthday came, because all it is to me now is just the last gas station, the last exit before Doom. not even two weeks after my 30th last year, and bam! Death. my own birth is a but a mile marker for Death. ain't all of 'em like that for everybody, though? how's that for symbolism?
The Universe, you can ram your stupid god-damned symbols right up your ass.
again, enough. how foolish and selfish of me. god damn. it's just that... damn, the pain of such an unbearable loss... if i had to give up all but one thing in my life, i'd choose to keep her. but now everything is too late. it's all over. she's gone. forever... forever. forever.
...i can't even see the monitor for the tears in my eyes. i'm going now. i don't know if i'll be back or not.