My Mimi, my 95 year old grandmother, is ill. Good grief, is it a surprise? She is 95. She had never been admitted to a hospital until she was 89 years old. Both her children were born at home with mid-wives. She's always worked hard and grew most of the food she ate, she was healthy.
Six years ago we found out she had cancer. But a little radiation and it kind of went dormant. The doctors said old age would get her first. They don't know my Mimi! She's still here and kicking, well and on dialysis and only weighs 83 pounds, but really she's feisty and kicking!
Recently she had a week stint in the hospital and ended up in a nursing home for rehabilitation. Then at the hospital again on Christmas Eve. Her cancer has spread. It's to her lungs and liver.
If you know anything about cancer, that's bad.
So that's the background. The learning comes from being at an age where you are just really starting to lose a lot of people around you. Some of them, not so old (my friend and doctor at age 61), and some pretty much at the end of their life. My maternal grandmother was 90 when she passed. She passed on my Mimi's 90th birthday, 5 years ago. I couldn't be there and was not close enough to the situation (1500 miles separated us) to realize that the end was so near. It was a surprise and I was saddened to not have been able to really say good-bye. Although I did make sure that I had told her I loved her dearly, the last time I spoke to her.
Now I know. I'm glad I know. I think. It's hard to know. I cry a lot. My kids are confused by that. "Mom? She's tough, what in the world is she crying about?" I explained to my 11 year old daughter that that lump of old lady is MY GRANDMA. She wasn't just an old, shriveled lady when I was young. She was vibrant and busy and we did things. "Like what?" she said. So I told her. She understands better, but then I cried some more.
I feel like I should be doing something. Anything. But what? You can't fix it. Nor should you really. It's her time. She's tired, not really having much fun any more and she's outlived all her siblings, even though she was the eldest, she's outlived most of her friends, one son and of course her parents are waiting for her as well.
It's heart wrenching, but still I'm glad I know. There's some learning that will be happening! I will make triple sure she knows how much she's loved and I will take her that cherry pie she wants and I will write down things until my hand crumples up, because I will learn all I can from her about our family before she can't tell me any more.
In my opinion, a library of knowledge is lost when someone that old dies. Especially a library of information about their family and the things that happened during their lives.
So I've learned that I may be tougher through the bad stuff than I thought, that I love deeply and it hurts, but I'm okay with that. It's worth it. I've learned to take my chances when I can. And I've learned that as upbeat as I usually am, my new blog may be depressing once in a while!
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