I was there when she died. During 2009, I saw two people die. Was there as they took their last breath and whatever soul or life force faded up into oblivion. Both were maternal grandmothers - my grandmother and Jerry's grandmother. I was there at the end of their beds, respectively.
When grams died, I knelled at the end of the bed and wept as my mother held one hand and my aunt held the other, my father in the corner and the hospice nurse to the side. I knelled there clinging to the end of the bed that hospice had provided and took huge, wracking, ugly sobs. I was scared, I was mourning and I was facing death. I could almost feel it in the room, the stillness, the feeling as if there weren't any oxygen left because there didn't seem to be as she took one shuddering breath after another and then was gone.
Over the summer, I debated on whether or not to take her old room, make it my own. And I worked on it, sanding the floors, hand buffing them, taking off wallpaper the hard way, and painting the entire room by myself. I made it my own but even now, sometimes, at night, I sit in the dark and I'm afraid. I don't believe in malicious spirits, but death happened here and now I'm living. That can be said for every inch of this earth, I'm sure, but this is my room. My haven. And I don't always feel that it is my haven.
The second death was Jerry's grandmother in a hospital, with family gathered round as the machines were turned off and the nurses waited behind curtains silently, waiting for that dreaded flat line. It took longer than I expected for some reason. I think its because movies and television have conditioned me to think that it only takes a few minutes. Instead it took several long moments and in the end, these people who were gathered around me - who had gathered several times, ready to say good bye before - finally seemed to let out a breath they had been holding for years. And there was a sadness in that act too. After so many close calls and rallying together, they were finally able to let go as she finally let go and I felt the same choking sadness well in me. Not because we were particularly close, although she did approve me - Jerry never got that approval from my grams, who didn't want to make any more connections because her time was coming. No, I cried because I knew the feeling and because it was too close...
Sorry for the morbid post tonight but I did say I'd post my old posts here. So here it is and here's my two cents today...
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