When my dad died, a lot of things were really crazy. Like, really crazy.
There were two funerals for my dad. At the first one, a friend of my dad's wife (my dad's wife would be my step-mother and is not the way I would refer to my own mother but instead the second woman my dad married; which is not to say there was a third, but just that she was not the person who birthed me and they got married when I was like, 20 or something, so I never called her my step-mother but none of this is the point,) came with us to dinner afterward. I was sitting at a table with my mom, my dad's wife, two of her friends and my sister. The one friend started to tell us that she had multiple personality disorder. She was telling us of all the places she'd woken up with no memory of how she'd gotten there. She told us how her kids liked one of her personalities because it was the personality of a child and how they would try to get that personality to "come out" so they could play together. When I look back at everything that happened upon finding out that my dead died, through the funerals and cleaning out his apartment and all the rest, I tell people that the most normal part of it all was the woman with the multiple personalities.
On October 25, my grandmother died.
It wasn't like with my dad. I was literally shocked by the news of my dad dying. He was not in good health, but death didn't seem like what would happen next. With my grandmother, I knew this was what was going to happen. I'd gone to see her a couple of times. I got to hear her talk a little bit to me and tell me one more time that she thought I looked nice, though I am pretty sure she didn't know who I was. I think she just thought I was a nice lady who was helping her while she was sick.
Watching, waiting, for a person to die is terrible, but the gift of it, is being able to tell the person goodbye. I got to tell my grandmother several times that I loved her and that she didn't have to be in pain anymore. I got to tell her what it would be like when I saw her again. I got to touch her face and hold her hand and sing to her a little bit.
One regret I have about my father's death is that I didn't go see his
body before they cremated him. My dad lived about four hours away. When
his wife finally got a hold of me to tell me that he had died and what
she knew at that time, she said that they would wait for my sister and I
to come and see him before they cremated him. I talked to my sister
about it, but at the time, I didn't go. I was scared and freaked out and
I didn't have a good relationship with my dad. The practical parts of
me took over the feelings parts of me and I decided that I didn't need
to see him. But I wish that I would have. I wish I would have seen him. I wish I could have told him goodbye.
During my grandmother's funeral, the things they said about her were true. She talked about her faith to the very end of her life. She did love to cook. She was incredibly talented. She was vain and tough and spoke her mind, even when the mind with which she was familiar was gone. It was really nice to listen to someone say what I did know to be true about her.
When my dad died, many of the people who knew him came to tell me the nice things he'd done for them or with them. It was very bittersweet because it wasn't the person I knew. I was glad this was the experience they had but it left me no comfort at all. With my grandmother, there was a little more comfort.
My grandmother could barely walk, but when she was in the hospital, she kicked a nurse for trying to help her into bed.
She was incredible.
I do not know if my dad kicked a nurse when he was in the hospital. I do know that he drove himself to a second hospital because the first wasn't helping him and he still felt ill. He bled in his car. I remember wiping the blood out of his car because my sister was going to be driving it. There wasn't a lot of blood, but I remember cleaning it.
I feel sad that he didn't have any help at what was really a time when he needed it most.
When my grandmother was dying, her face appeared very contorted. Had she been able to see that face, she would not have been pleased. My grandmother cared very much about how a person looked. It must have been painful and exhausting for her, the dying process. After she finally had died, she looked the most like her self since she'd been in the hospital. Once it was all over, she was truly at rest.
She used to always introduce me as her "oldest grand-baby" which sadly lost a touch of its charm as I became way more older. I used to feel a little embarrassed when she would do that, but now it makes me feel so incredibly sad to know that she isn't here to tell people that anymore.
My grandmother loved me unabashedly. I have a voice mail she left me in the summer saying how she just had to call to me that she loved me. I am heart-broken that there is no longer a person on the planet who loves me like that.
That is probably over-dramatic.
She was a flawed person. I didn't know her well enough. I didn't spend enough time with her, but it was so great knowing she was there. It meant something that she was here, even if I wasn't with her.
I acknowledge that this post is all over the place and also that it is not really funny. I apologize. I just feel really sad. It is a romantic idea I have, of a person in my life who knows me so intimately and could advise me, particularly in this time of my life where I just feel so completely without an idea of what to do. I know I need to fix my person; I do not know how. In my dreams, I would be able to talk to my dad or my grandmother about it and they would know me and offer some sort of advice.
Instead.
Instead, I am just me. Really confused. Wasting more time. Wishing that the oldest grand-baby had...something. Had more.
At least I know that she did love me. And the last time we talked, she thought my tights were really pretty.
I know that my father loved me, too, in his own, warped way. I don't remember at all the last conversation we had. I am certain it was brief. I hope I would have told him I loved him at the end of it. I don't know if I did. I know it would have been strained.
I know it won't all feel sad forever. It will pass and this blog will lighten up again. Maybe I will even start writing in it more often!!
There you go, humans. That was your one joke.
