The Thing You Don't Think About

It's like seeing the pile of laundry and forgetting to do it until you see it again. It's that soapy pan in the sink you swear you'll clean eventually. It's the thing lurking at the back of your brain, something you know is coming, but you don't want to think about it, until it finally arrives when you least expect it.

I lost my Grandma today.

Ever since I was little, somewhere, in the back of my mind, I knew she would eventually pass away. I heard stories of friends my age, talking about how their grandparents died, how they don't have their grandparents anymore. I always knew that I would lose my grandma; my grandpa died twelve years before I was born.

But, as a child, you know that day is far in the future. It'll come later, when you're older and an adult, probably married even. You know as you look at the wrinkles getting deeper, the hair getting whiter when Grandma doesn't get around to dyeing it, that it's coming. That no one lives forever.

But to a child, anything above twenty is forever.

So forever finally came today. Towards the end of April, I receive a call from my brother, telling me that my grandma is in the hospital. I immediately chastised him for starting the conversation like that and not telling me why my grandmother is in the hospital: she's having some serious pain and is undergoing some minor surgery to help make it better.

In May, I visit my grandma at the home where she's recovering. A part of me senses that this is her future. My mind races to her house, nestled on the hill on the corner, the arched driveway a pair of welcoming arms. How it's not her house anymore. How another family, one that doesn't know about the woman who spent twenty-one years having Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, and a general Sunday afternoon that stretched into Sunday night there.

I don't think she wants to give that up, and i'm right. She moves back home, and everything is as usual.

Last Sunday, we prepared dinner at Grandma's. I've had many dinners there before. Meat Loaf, just like my Mom made it, except covered in nasty tomato paste, her meat pies that I could die for, (pun not intended!), zuncinni with butter and cheese melted on top, her famous creamed potatoes that I could eat the entire tray-ful and still not be sick of it. Yet Grandma ate sluggishly, barely eating anything. I knew my Grandma was a good eater, she always had been; it was a value she insisted her grandchildren on having. I attributed her lack of appetite to her pain that she was in.

Then, yesterday, my aunts found my grandma in a very bad state. She was delirious and couldn't get up. I assume that she's just going in for a few days, then coming out and going back home with some new pain medications and a stricter regiment that she will hopefully decide to follow this time.

Today I get a text from my sister. "Call me when you can. It's about grandma." I know this can't be good news. An update on her condition would have come straight from my dad. it would have been at least four parts long, with a basic summary of how she was doing. If it can't be told in a text, it can't be anything good. My sister says that Grandma is on her deathbed.

This is when I get confused. My grandma is a fighter, a stubborn woman who does everything her way, and gets her way as often as she can. To hear that she has suddenly declined so rapidly, I almost can't believe it.

Almost.

It happened with my Mom. One day fine, the next day not.

I shower as quickly as possible and hurry over to my sister's house so we can carpool to the hospital to see her. On our way into the hospital, we find my cousins and aunt and uncle sitting outside. Grandma had gone in for a test, but she was very responsive, they told us. We get a text from my cousin to come inside. The test must be over.

We reach the third floor where she's supposed to be. That's when we see my cousin coming down the hall, alone, and looking very serious, a sharp contrast from the funny, sarcastic, outspoken cousin I know.

"Grandma had a code blue."

I don't know what that means, but anything with the word Code in it can't be good. Hands fly to mouths, the tears start. The end is near. The little nagging thought in the back of my brain is now fully realized. Old Age has come.

Grandma Della is dying.

We gather outside the room where she had her code blue. They talk for a good twenty minutes about drugs and the options we have. There are few dry eyes. More cousins come. We decide to leave and go to the cafeteria so my grandmother's direct children make the next decision. Before we leave, they wheel her out to go back upstairs.

I want to say something, anything, but the realization that she's dying, no matter what we do, chokes my words. I see her face. She 's pale and gaunt. Just like my Mom was. I know Grandma won't make it more than a couple of hours.

We're in the cafeteria, reminiscing, thinking we'll have a chance to say goodbye, thinking that it's going to be a couple hours or so before we have any news.

My uncle comes and tells us that they're going to try to find a way to reduce the clots that are plaguing my grandmother's veins. My dad comes in and ushers him out. I sense something has happened, or perhaps they need him for something.

A few minutes later, my brother-in-law, a pharmacist at another hospital comes down. We look up in greeting when I hear him whisper to my sister, "Your grandma's passed," as if he himself doesn't want to believe it's true.

He repeats himself, a little louder now, and, en-mass, we leave the cafeteria and head to the floor where Grandma's body is now. We hug each other, crying. There, on the hospital bed, is my grandma. The grandma who always called me "Darlin'" The grandma who insisted I act like a lady at all times. If her chest would just move, it would look like she had fallen asleep with her mouth open. But the color is gone from her face, and she just looks wrong.

The one thing I hate about grief is the roller coaster ride it puts you on. You can be just fine one second, and a sobbing mess the next. I've been joking and laughing, drying my eyes and feeling like it's any other family gathering, and then I remember why we're here.

I decide, in the moments as I'm hugging my cousins, that we are not letting the death of grandma keep us apart. We are going to keep her alive in us and in the traditions. it may not be at the same house, but it will be the same traditions.

Then the most natural thing of all occurs, everyone decides to go to grandma's house. Not all at once, though. My dad, brother and I head to my sister's house for dinner. We talk about how surprising it is to know my grandma is dead, but she's with her husband, my grandpa I never knew, my mom, and her sisters. But most importantly, she's no longer in pain. She's no longer in a body that's hunched her over and caused her constant pain.

At my grandma's house, everything is as it should be. We're all together, everything is as it was before grandma died, it seems normal.

But it's not. we have to go through all the things now. All the clothes and furniture and the many, many pieces of fabric that my grandma used to quilt with. But my cousins and I are looking at the toys, searching for an old train of ducks that everyone remembers, but is in terrible condition; holding up the marble machine, claiming that each grandchild should put a marble down the wooden box because everyone remembers playing with it. We talk about the things we want to take with us, things that have value to us.

It's hard to think that Grandma's house will soon be someone else's. That another family will move into there and claim the rooms for their own. But there's still time...but not long.

Unlike the pile of laundry or the dirty pan in the sink, this one is a leaky faucet, a clogged toilet, something that requires immediate attention.

Grandma, I love you, and I will miss you. I'm happy though, you're no longer in pain.