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"SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part"
Esbea 7377 desperate attention whore postings
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07-11-05, 07:57 PM (EST)
 
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"SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
This is my first time with this competetion, so be gentle. To those of you who've seen it already, thanks for the encouragement.My grandmother is dying. She wants to, you know. I can’t say that I blame her. At 96, all of her friends and family members of her generation have proceeded her, and she’s alone. I sit and write and pretend that I know her, but I don’t. I have little knowledge of what her life was like at all. I know nothing of her parents other than their last name. I know that she was a college graduate in a time where it was uncommon for education to be “wasted” on girls. I know this because I have seen her group graduation picture, though I can’t recall exactly which college it was. She roomed with a family, cooked and cleaned for room and board, and went home every weekend by horse and buggy. I know that she taught school in Amity, Ohio, but not what grade she taught. I know that her first date with my Grandpa was to go see “A Night At The Opera” with the Marx Brothers.
I know that she considered the greatest technologic milestone witnessed in her life to be Neil Armstrong stepping onto the moon. Quite an accomplishment, considering men were still spin-starting propellers in planes in her youth. I know she lost two babies. One was still born, and the other died very young. She’s never talked about it much, but when she did, it brought tears to her eyes those many years later. I know she didn’t have indoor plumbing until the 50’s when her children were in high school. I know she didn’t want to leave her house and go to a “home”, but did so because she couldn’t abide anyone coming in, and refused to live with anyone else. I know that she’s decided to die there. And soon. I have memories, don’t get me wrong. But in a child’s eye that doesn’t look any farther than nice clothes and china on the table, her subtle wealth went unappreciated. She was the quiet, stable, always-gives-you-clothes-for-Christmas Grandma. Because you needed them. She never forgot a birthday, even when I was next to impossible to find, and believe me, there were times when I was. She would bring all five of us grandkids a Valentine with a lollipop in it every February 14th. A seemingly frivolous waste of money from a woman, who for years, saved very scrap of foil, every hole-free baggie and washed the foam plates and plasticwear at Thanksgiving. She always wore patched jeans and a big funky-looking straw hat to garden in. Her garden was huge. She planted rows upon rows of vegetables for all of us to pick, hull and weed every summer so that we wouldn’t go hungry. She also planted flowers and hung out birdfeeders and set out milk and stale bread for the scores of kittens that congregated at her door. Thinking back, I rarely remember seeing adults cats, just kittens. Odd isn’t it? To this day I tease her about wasting my inheritance on shoes. She hasn’t voluntarily bought a new pair of shoes in 40 years. I bought her a new bathrobe for Christmas in 1986. I’m fairly certain they found it still hanging in the dining room wardrobe when they cleaned out the house last fall, tag intact. After all, her old one was still good. She was comfortable with with workaday, fix-it-‘til-it-cant-be fixed-no-more frugality. Her life was hard, as was my Grandfather, as the various stress fractures on her spine and numerous scarred-over broken ribs would attest. Yet, save once, I’ve never heard her utter a bad word about anyone, let alone him. Toward the end of her time in her own house, Dad had to start locking her in at night because she would go out to wander the fields looking for Grandpa. It was dark, you see, and he wasn’t home and hadn’t eaten. Twenty years and the great beyond hadn’t dulled her need to take care of her husband. She’s past the point of telling me her secrets now. She sits, ravaged by time and disease, in the dayroom feigning interest in her surroundings. She has been moved from “Assisted Living” to full time care, having to share a room with a woman she doesn’t know and can’t converse with. The only commonality they share is liver spotted, parchment paper skin, thin white hair, and a sense of disdain for what their lives have become. She has good days where she can hold her own cup and bad days where she calls my Aunt by her stillborn’s name. She doesn’t know me when I come to visit, although she does know who “Sara” is. I simply am not the “Sara” she remembers. She still loves yellow roses and watching birds at the feeder. She still wears the same slippers. I want her to die. She deserves her rest. She deserves a release from the daily indignities of being bathed, and wiped and dressed by well paid strangers. She deserves to be whole, with people she loves, in glory at the feet of a God she believes so deeply in. Her release, however, is my profound loss. The loss of knowing her as a person. The loss of knowing a little bit more of myself. I ache. But the pain of her dying is worse than the pain of her death. 
Gran passed peacefully in her sleep 3 weeks ago.
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zombiebaby 7021 desperate attention whore postings
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07-11-05, 09:37 PM (EST)
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2. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
Esbea,This was so accurate and so perfect. I know what you mean and those that have seen themselves in this story will know exactly what you are saying. You have very eloquently written a beautiful obituary. Thank you for sharing and for making me not feel alone.  
Look at me I got a Sweet Summer Syren Siggie!
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motormouth 4421 desperate attention whore postings
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07-12-05, 01:34 AM (EST)
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3. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
You wrote about her with such love and admiration, it choked me up as well. Great writing Esbea.
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cahaya 14104 desperate attention whore postings
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07-12-05, 04:48 AM (EST)
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4. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
LAST EDITED ON 07-12-05 AT 05:00 AM (EST)Esbea, your experiences with your grandmother and my experiences with my grandmother are so closely paralleled, even in the little details - so much so that these memories resurfaced within me with joy and tears. Yours is a very wonderfully written, heartfelt testimony to who your grandma was and how she touched your life. I still remember the last words my grandma shared with me a few years ago during Christmas, as I was about to leave her at the care center and fly back the next day to Asia, knowing that I would probably never see her again. She said that she prayed that God would take her soon, because she'd already lived more than a full life, and she was ready move on to the next world and be embraced in His presence. "Please pray to Him for me to go," she said before we hugged to part ways and share final words of love. It was three weeks later that she left this world. Thank you for your heartfelt testimony, Esbea. It touches my heart in memory of someone who was, and in many ways still is, a very special person in my life. 
"Timeless at lightspeed."
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Schnookie Palookie 16822 desperate attention whore postings
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07-12-05, 09:22 PM (EST)
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7. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
Oh my, that brought tears to my eyes. You have some wonderful memories of your grandmother Sara. Thank you for sharing. Beautiful!!
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PhoenixMons 4696 desperate attention whore postings
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07-13-05, 09:40 AM (EST)
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10. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
LAST EDITED ON 07-13-05 AT 09:41 AM (EST)Sorry for your loss, esbea. I wrote a piece for the last SC about my grandfather and my memories of him. My grandmother passed in '99 (a few months before my wedding) and we were very close. It was still extremely hard to deal with even though I knew she was ready to go. I really liked this sentence in particular: The only commonality they share is liver spotted, parchment paper skin, thin white hair, and a sense of disdain for what their lives have become. Thanks for sharing. *HUGS* 
Got blog?
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calamityc 1041 desperate attention whore postings
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07-28-05, 11:30 AM (EST)
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14. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
This was wonderful Esbea. Your words drew such a picture I actually thought I could "see" your Grandmother, and that is what it is all about.
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Surveysez 2793 desperate attention whore postings
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07-28-05, 11:40 AM (EST)
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15. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
I'm sorry, I want to say I liked this, but it goes to deeply and touches on too many levels to be just something that one likes. You have a gift and a voice that should be heard.
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J I M B O 6839 desperate attention whore postings
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07-28-05, 06:59 PM (EST)
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16. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
You know how a good acting performance is one where you don't realize acting is going on? That is how comfortably absorbing your style is. Just wonderful.
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Silvergirl1 8694 desperate attention whore postings
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08-02-05, 02:26 PM (EST)
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20. "RE: SSC5 (NF) Death is the easy part" |
This is a very poignant piece, and it also brings up the memories your grandmother made for you by giving of herself. Thanks for sharing. I did read it the first time, too, but it bears reading again. *smooch* 
Sigs by Bob! Like nuthin you've seen before!
A/C is cool.
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