Grieving

Granny’s body finally gave up the fight on Thursday evening. She was not truly here for nearly five days before that. She was on the highest dose of morphine they could give, but her heart and oxygen held mostly steady. It wasn’t until they ran out of morphine and it took several hours before the pharmacy sent any that her body finally had the energy to let go.

I spent time at the hospital every day, sometimes multiple times in a day. On Thursday I went by before work, then again after lunch until I had to be home to meet the bus. Then my daughter and I returned to the hospital. We had expected to see her again the next day at the hospice facility they planned to move her to that evening. The transport never happened.

While we are all very sad to not have her here in our lives anymore, we are grateful that she has moved on. Her last few weeks were not the quality of life we would want for her. You always hate to call death a relief, yet it often is. When I shared the news with my kids, neither cried. My daughter had cried several times in the previous days and wondered why she wasn’t crying when she was actually gone. I explained that she had already done some of her grieving and we knew this was coming, so it was not surprising that she didn’t cry. My son sat in silence and when I gave him a hug I could hear that he was trying to control his breathing. While he hasn’t talked about it at all, I wonder how it’s really effecting him.

My husband spent all day Wednesday and Thursday with his family at the hospital and he was there in her final moments. I know his dad and aunt really appreciated his presence, not only for the emotional support, but also because he knew the medical side of what was happening and could ask questions or translate when they didn’t understand. I hope Granny knew he was there for her. He might not have been as attentive a grandson as she would have preferred, but it’s obvious he really loved her.

I’ll be honest, there is a small part of me that is resentful that he spent so much time at the hospital. He was rarely there when we spent time with her while she was alive. I know she wasn’t my grandmother by blood, but I still felt closer to her than he was. When he let me know she was gone I immediately offered to come to the hospital. He told me it wasn’t necessary. Which hurt. He said “If you want to come for you, you are welcome, but we’re fine.” I felt rejected. I wanted them to want me there. I wanted to be there, but wanted someone to tell me to come.

As I struggled with my decision, my mother in law gave a perspective that hurt my feelings (unintentional, of course) and I snapped. That’s when I started bawling. I cried and coughed all the way to the hospital. I felt as if I had this great big ball of grief that I wasn’t entitled to, which just made it hurt worse. Not that anyone said that at all, but I’ve felt it nonetheless.

Over the next few days arrangements were made for the funeral and cleaning out her room at the nursing home. It turns out, her roommate passed away too. My daughter and I helped with the clean out, then went to D’s house to help scan photos to use for a slideshow. I worked on the photos while more and more was loaded into the back of my van for me to take to donations. My father in law was determined to get it all done ASAP and didn’t understand why his sister wasn’t on the same page. They were driving each other crazy, which isn’t surprising at all. I pointed out to both of them that everyone deals with grief differently, and just because someone doesn’t grieve the way you do doesn’t mean they’re doing it wrong.

Tomorrow is the funeral. I gave the kids the option of missing the whole day of school, but they chose instead to go for the first two classes (math and science). I’ll be picking them up at 10 so they can change clothes and we can be at the funeral home for the viewing. They have both agreed to be pall bearers. Tomorrow is going to be very emotional. And I feel like I have to take care of everyone else, even though I’m grieving too. Just writing this has me fighting tears. If I wasn’t sitting at Panara Bread, I’d just let them flow.

I recognize the fact that I am entitled to my own grief, just like everyone else. But for some reason I feel as if I am supposed to take care of everyone else. While no one sees a need to take care of me.