Goodbye Grandma

Last July I wrote this about my grandmother. Yesterday she peacefully left our world. Wonderfully we take comfort in the fact that she is now reunited with her beloved Ned. We'll all miss her.

16th July 2010

I've just returned from visiting my parents. My mother has recently had the task of placing my 93 year old grandmother into a nursing home. As you can imagine it is an emotional experience.

My grandmother is one of the most stubborn people I know. Her husband passed away in the early 70's and she has lived on her own ever since. I can't begin to tell you about how many times my grandmother should have passed away. From being run over on a pedestrian crossing,to putting her car through the side of a church until the last major threat a stroke in 1988 which we were all called home to say our goodbyes. Here we are finally putting her into care after years of independence. When I was at school a boy who lived in her street called her house the Botanical Garden of Junction Street. This made me secretly proud of her even though I said how embarrassing at the time. Grandma loved her garden and I think this is what has kept her alive.

So one afternoon during my visit this week I found myself with a sleeping Bless-ed Tia in my arms sitting with my grandmother. It was a whole new experience as we sat together. It was very quiet and with the age that my grandmother is the conversation went around in circles for a little while and then the conversation petered out. I was desperately avoiding conversation about her old home and had to keep snapping my mouth shut from asking if she liked her new one.

So we sat in the quiet for a while. I looked at my grandmother. I mean I really looked at her. For the first time I saw her age. You know how when you're a kid everyone over 40 is old looking. But this time I looked at her and the saw her real age. I surveyed the room and began measuring it in my my mind. Yes, definitely bigger than my hospital room not much but bigger. I surveyed the room her life had been reduced to. It was simply now one room with a bathroom instead of a house and beautiful garden. I looked at the photos of her old garden on the wall. I looked back to my grandmother.

In her eyes was a reflection of part me. Her eyes spoke of vulnerability and uneasiest. I recognised the look in her eyes. Here I am in this room her eyes said. This is what my life is now and I don't know what the future holds for me. In that instant I felt compassion for my grandmother on a level I'd never felt before. I closed my eyes, gently rocked Tia and let the emotion of the moment sink in.

The next day I realised I'd left my sunglasses at my grandmothers and rushed into her room to grab them before we came home. I felt the excitement from her of another visitor but I was quickly in and out of the home. As we drove off I could see her standing at the window trying to catch a glimpse of us. I waved and encouraged the kids to wave. Grandma spotted us and waved back. A lonely figure standing at the window. A little lady, frail from age and life who has a heart of a lion.

I'm so glad that our last memory is of her standing at her window waving goodbye. So appreciative that I got to spend a peaceful hour with her and recognised all that she was.

Goodbye Grandma.

If the feisty zeal for life that Bless-ed Tia has came from you. She's going to live a long and wonderful life <3

Cathryn