So This Is Christmas

One year ago today my parents picked my grandma up from her apartment for the last time. We didn’t know it that day, but grandma wouldn’t be getting better this time.

In October of 2007 my grandmother was diagnosed with stage four colorectal cancer. She needed an emergency life saving surgery. My mother and brother flew to Tennessee to be with her and figure out what the next step was. The next step ended up being sneaking grandma out of the hospital, putting her on a plane days after surgery and flying her back here to be taken care of. I hope I have guts like my mom some day.

After about a year of treatment and recovery, my grandma was able to live on her own. At some point in there she was established as cancer free.

The picture above is her last Christmas with us, in 2009.

Fast-forward to 2010. During a bone scan to find the cause of her hip pain, a lab tech at the hospital noticed something oddly tumor shaped on Grandma’s scans. More tests and scans were done, and, sitting in a cold doctors office in September, the oncologist told my grandmother, my mother, and myself that Grandma had Stage 4 Colon Cancer all over again, and it had metastasized. How did we deal with the news? We went shopping. Grandma asked me if she was going to be a great-grandmother before she died. I told her we were working on it.

A year ago today Jake and I were driving home from Sacramento. My parents called me to admit that Jackie, who had spent the weekend with them, had accidentally ingested some cookies.

Some of my grandmother’s cookies.

My grandmother with stage four cancer.

Ok…the cookies had marijuana in them.

My mom told me Grandma had come over to spend the night, and Jackie had grabbed one, maybe more than one, cookie off the counter.

“She’s trippin…and I’m not sure she likes it.”

Now, if you’ve ever met Jackie, you know one thing for sure: she loves food, she’s not very bright, and she’s not at all lady like. When we arrived at my mom’s house, she was sitting slouched by the wall. Not abnormal for her. The difference? She wasn’t leaning against the wall. She was sitting facing it, staring intently. When we walked in the house, she looked up and gave one thump of her tail, and went right back to staring at the wall. I was able to distract her for a few moments, but before we left she walked right back to the wall to stare. When we took her home, she spent most of the evening barking up at the ceiling.

I’m not even kidding.

And I wish we’d taken a picture.

Because we were so distracted and humored by poor Wacky Jackie, I didn’t ask why Grandma was spending the night at my parents. The next day, my mom’s birthday, hospice came with a hospital bed. Apparently it wasn’t a routine sleep over for my grandma. The ladies who’d been checking in on her everyday had asked my parents to get her because she’d not been acting right. I think she got up for a bit on the 20th, but by the afternoon she was in bed for good.

I spent most of the 20th and 21st at my parents house. I don’t remember much about those days. What I do remember is getting the call just before midnight on the 21st.

“It’s time,” was all my mother said.

Jake and I got out of bed, drove the two miles in silence, and walked into my parents house. The house was warm, the fire roaring. Instrumental Christmas music floated peacefully through the air from Grandma’s room. I heard my dad reading from Luke 2, the Christmas story, outloud. My mom, sobbing silently, was brushing Grandma’s hair. The labored, bubbling breathing was all I needed to hear to know that my parents were right.                                                                                             This was it.

I picked up my grandmother’s frail hands. They’d always been so beautiful. She’d always been so beautiful. She was a vain woman, always obsessed about her appearance and being young. Now, in the hour of her death, her hands were still so very soft. Her long fingers still elegant and her alabaster skin still translucent. Her face was beginning to grey, but her hands looked just as they always had. I sat for a long time just looking at them, like I had as a young her, wishing my hands looked like hers. So fragile, yet so strong. That night I noticed that we had the same thumbs. I’d never noticed it before. Maybe my eyes were just playing tricks on me, but I swear that’s what I saw. I still hope to have hands like her some day. After a while we started talking. Memories, anecdotes, and thing that had nothing to do with anything. But every delayed breath stopped conversation.

But she didn’t die that night. In fact, by morning she hadn’t gotten any worse, and even looked slightly better. Even though she couldn’t respond, I know she was still there. My mom had called her siblings to let them know what was happening. My aunt and one of my uncles said they were coming. Unfortunately my other uncle wasn’t going to be able to make it. I think that Grandma fought just enough to hang on until they got there. The 22nd was spent mostly in the same way as the 20th and the 21st. We took turns sitting by her, reading aloud. My mom took some time to put a little bit of make-up on her. She would have wanted to look her best, what with everyone coming to see her. We wanted to bathe her, but she grimaced in pain each time we rotated her to avoid bed sores. Instead we lit candles. Kept the room extra warm because she always hated being cold. We sat around her talking, laughing about old memories. Meals were eaten in her room. The easy chairs were dragged in. Computers were set up. Pictures gathered from around the house. Music played constantly.

I think maybe it was like death was in the old days, when people died at home. There was sadness, but there was also relief. This was going to happen, and at this point it was for the best. It was just the ways things were. I went home for a short time to shower and change clothes. There wasn’t anything I could do at my parents house, but I couldn’t stand to be away. Jake had been coming back and forth, taking care of the dogs and getting what little work done that he could. Around midnight on the 22nd my aunt and uncle walked through the front door, arms filled with hand made cards from their children. They came with more pictures, too. Some time after 4 am I started to doze on the couch. My dad told me to go to bed with Mom. He would come get us if something happened.

Mom was already in bed. I don’t know if she was asleep or not. I crawled in next to her, scooted close and quietly cried myself to sleep.

At 8:30 my dad came in. “It’s time.” I’d heard that before.

I remember feeling strangely at peace walking down the hall. We all made it into the bedroom as she took her last breath. She was gone for real this time, surrounded by her loving family.

I called Jake. My mom, or my aunt, or my uncle, called my other uncle. Someone called my brother.

And then we did nothing. Well, we ate breakfast and drank some tea. It was some time before anyone made a move to actually do anything. But it was totally fine. Eventually Mom, Aunt and I went in and started to wash Grandma. Dad and Uncle went to Grandma’s house to get a clean change of clothes for her. I couldn’t stay the whole time. It wasn’t that she was dead. It wasn’t that I was creeped out. I sat and watched my mom and her sister, two people who didn’t get along (for other reasons) come together and love their mom. I watched a relationship being to heal. And I watched my mom honor her own mother even though the relationship had been strained and awkward for a long time.

It made me cry. It actually made me sob hysterically and I pretended that the smell was making me faint. In reality I was hyperventilating and hid in my mom’s closet until I pulled myself together.

Later in the morning the people came and got Grandma’s body. We’d done her make up, washed and styled her hair, and dressed her in a black suit with a leopard print collar. She looked absolutely beautiful. I don’t know who the people were. Whoever the people are who take dead bodies. Those people. Later that afternoon Hospice came for the hospital bed. Aunt and Uncle started the journey back to San Diego that night.

And that was it. She was gone for real. Christmas that year was…I don’t really remember. I think mom made coffee cake and blueberry muffins like she always does. At some point we went over to Jake’s parents’ house.

This year is feeling much the same. I don’t know how to approach it. I didn’t intend for this post to be so down, but thanks for sticking with me. It’s an odd year for sure, but it was good to get that all down in writing.

I miss her a lot. I don’t think of it often because it makes me so sad, but I really do miss Grandma. She was a really great grandma.

Grandma, circa 1968