May 8, 2012

  • Hard Life

    I never really knew either of my grandmas, maternal or paternal. I've only met my maternal grandmother once, but I knew more about her from stories told by my mother than from anywhere else. In all honesty, I only know her in a secondhand kind of way. Yet blood runs deep. I still care for her. She is still my grandmother. I still know her no matter what way it's in. 

    But when I heard she was in the hospital, thousands of miles away, I didn't feel much. Some sadness, but not much. I'll keep it real-- I wasn't that sad at all. Yet again, through secondhand accounts, I heard how she was doing. I heard how the doctors were telling my uncle how she was going to die. I heard how she was defying the odds and doing well. She was talking, joking and generally strong. Then I heard how she was starting to get worse. How my family was arguing whether or not to keep her alive. I heard how a tube was shoved down her throat just to keep her alive. How her hands where tied down so she wouldn't rip it out. I heard it all. 

    Just how I had heard about my grandmother's life through my mother, I was hearing about her impending death from my mother. 

    And now is the first time I've felt such a deep sadness for my grandmother. 

    She has lived a hard life. A life so long, it would take many blog entries to recount, but from what I've learned, her entire life has been difficult. Then having to deal with this... I feel sadness for anyone who has to spend their last days in a hospital bed, machines keeping you alive in a place where the odors, sounds, and atmosphere burden you with a feeling of doom. I wonder what my grandmother is thinking while she lies in her bed. When she's lucid enough to think, what is she feeling?

    I hope that she has made peace with God. I need to pray for her more often, but I don't. I need to. I will. 

    I hope that she can look back on her life and see that she did her best with her 10 children. Even if her husband was a scoundrel, even if her children didn't take care of her the best, she loved them with a perfect kind of love. 

    I hope she was can see that her life was worth it. 

    Maybe the picture I'm painting is too rosy to transpose onto reality, but I really hope my grandmother can find some sort of peace while she lies in her bed. 

    Even though I didn't really know her, I still care. 

    And I'm still sad. Really, really sad.