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Well, I hadn't been planning on going anywhere over Thanksgiving this year; Mary and I usually spend it with her father's family -- a gathering which can, variously, happen in Virginia, at the beach, or one memorable year, in Georgia *and* at the beach -- I'm quite sure we spent more time driving than we did actually seeing anybody at all. This year, though, it's happening in Florida, and neither Mary nor I have the time or money to trek down to Florida for dinner. So we were just going to stay home, maybe take advantage of discount turkey prices, maybe watch some Oz DVDs (they're like fifteen bucks a season right now on Amazon, srsly!)
But then my grandmother died this week, so actually, I'm headed home after all. I'm happy that we *didn't* have plans with Mary's family that she would have to miss out on because of this.
My grandmother had been very ill for more than two years, both mentally and physically, so it's not at all a surprise. She went into a hospice program a couple of weeks ago, and we were told that she would certainly live no more than six months, and probably not until Christmas. Even so, once the real decline began, it happened much, much faster than we expected it to. At a certain point of inevitability, that becomes the good news, you know?
She was 87 years old, and I have her name as my middle name. She was born on a small farm in west Missouri to the kind of old-school rural parents who were serious like the plague about education and moving up in the world, and all four of their children got college educations -- both their sons and both their daughters. Her degree was in special education and she taught remedial reading, although she always told me what she really wanted to be was a writer. I don't know that she ever really wrote anything -- or what happened to it if she did -- but I know her house was always full of books. She wasn't your sort of stereotypical cuddly, baking grandma; she was whip-smart and sharp-tongued and a perfectionist, she never fogot a slight and she had enormously high expectations of everything and everyone around her, but she doted on her four granddaughters and was always involved in my life and supportive of everything I did. She deeply resented the degree to which she lost her independence in the last few years of her life, and it was always hard for me to see how helpless her fragility made her, when she had never in her life been a helpless person in any way. She took out a lot of her frustrations and her fear on my mother, who is pretty much the kindest, most sensitive person I know, and that was kind of a family train-wreck that I'm glad to know is now basically over with.
Most of that is just to say, I miss my grandmother, but this is not one of those devastating events. It was time. She wasn't herself anymore, and in a way I feel now like I have her back again -- my elegant, articulate, determined grandmother, and not the sad, spiteful, lost old woman who made me so angry and resentful because of all the times she made my mother cry. I'm sort of exhausted and a little stressed, but mostly I'm happy to be going home, because I really want to be with my family right now, with people who knew her and loved her.
But then my grandmother died this week, so actually, I'm headed home after all. I'm happy that we *didn't* have plans with Mary's family that she would have to miss out on because of this.
My grandmother had been very ill for more than two years, both mentally and physically, so it's not at all a surprise. She went into a hospice program a couple of weeks ago, and we were told that she would certainly live no more than six months, and probably not until Christmas. Even so, once the real decline began, it happened much, much faster than we expected it to. At a certain point of inevitability, that becomes the good news, you know?
She was 87 years old, and I have her name as my middle name. She was born on a small farm in west Missouri to the kind of old-school rural parents who were serious like the plague about education and moving up in the world, and all four of their children got college educations -- both their sons and both their daughters. Her degree was in special education and she taught remedial reading, although she always told me what she really wanted to be was a writer. I don't know that she ever really wrote anything -- or what happened to it if she did -- but I know her house was always full of books. She wasn't your sort of stereotypical cuddly, baking grandma; she was whip-smart and sharp-tongued and a perfectionist, she never fogot a slight and she had enormously high expectations of everything and everyone around her, but she doted on her four granddaughters and was always involved in my life and supportive of everything I did. She deeply resented the degree to which she lost her independence in the last few years of her life, and it was always hard for me to see how helpless her fragility made her, when she had never in her life been a helpless person in any way. She took out a lot of her frustrations and her fear on my mother, who is pretty much the kindest, most sensitive person I know, and that was kind of a family train-wreck that I'm glad to know is now basically over with.
Most of that is just to say, I miss my grandmother, but this is not one of those devastating events. It was time. She wasn't herself anymore, and in a way I feel now like I have her back again -- my elegant, articulate, determined grandmother, and not the sad, spiteful, lost old woman who made me so angry and resentful because of all the times she made my mother cry. I'm sort of exhausted and a little stressed, but mostly I'm happy to be going home, because I really want to be with my family right now, with people who knew her and loved her.
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no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 06:57 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 07:05 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 07:29 am (UTC)From:you lost her and got her back at one time
Date: 2007-11-22 07:32 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 08:10 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 08:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 02:43 pm (UTC)From:Her family background actually sounds a good deal like my maternal grandmother's, in many ways. What was her ethnic background? How long had her family been in America?
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 04:48 pm (UTC)From:Isn't it a blessing to come from women like that? Smart women raised way out in the country, who maybe wore overalls and got manure on their shoes, but who never doubted that the books are the most valuable things in the home. And to also have from your mother that kindness and generosity, and also to come from the kind of men who married such women, or who sent such daughters to school. Gives me the shivers to think of it.
I am so sorry that she had to endure the body's decline and that terrible dwindling of her powers, and that she turned those pains on your mother. I am glad with you that she is not gone from the world, that she is in your very bones, and that you *do* have her back now, and that eventually your mom will have her back too. Much love to you, and thanksgiving that I know you and your work a little, and I'm holding you in the Light this weekend as you make the trip together.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-22 08:26 pm (UTC)From:*HUGS
Thank you for sharing these words with us. Bless and keep safe on the journey home.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 02:25 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 03:32 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-23 03:52 am (UTC)From:I took early retirement to come back and spend time with her and this past 1 1/2 years was good... she and her late husband, my Grampa, were the giants in my life and seemed to understand better than most of the rest of the family when I ran off to the west coast so long ago...
I miss them both... ::hugs you::
no subject
Date: 2007-11-24 06:48 am (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2007-11-25 09:19 pm (UTC)From: