Her name was Charlotte: A mini memoir

She is hooked up to medical equipment; has an oxygen mask on.  Her eyes are closed tightly.  Can she hear us?  Can she feel me holding her hand?

Just last night she was awake, she hugged me and asked why I was crying.  I told her it was just my hormones from being pregnant, but I know that she knew the truth.  We didn't want to scare her, so we didn't tell her that the doctor said she wouldn't make it through the night, but she knew.  I was crying because I was so sad and scared.  How can I live without her?  Without her guidance, without her hugs, without her love? Without her and my Grandpa as one? I am panicking now.  There is still so much to say, so much to talk about.  I am not ready for this.  It's happening too fast.  My Grandpa gives her a sweet goodnight kiss; they give each other a hard time about something, and he heads home to get some sleep.  We stay with her until she falls asleep.  The nurse says she will call if anything changes.

The next morning I wake up, feeling in a rush to get back to the hospital. I drink some coffee, have some breakfast, pack some things and head out.  When I arrive she is sleeping.  I am the first one there and I feel relieved to spend some time with her alone.  The nurse tells me she woke up once and said she felt crummy, then went back to sleep.  I take out a pad of paper and a pen.  I want to write every memory down, but my mind goes blank.  Why can't I think of a single memory?!  I look at her.  She seems to be in such a deep sleep.  Can she hear me if I talk to her?  I do anyway.  I tell her how great of a grandma she is, how much I love her, then I sing "You are my sunshine" to her like she would for me when I was little.  I lie and tell her we will be okay.  It's a lie because I don't really feel that way.  I continue talking to her, about what I don't even remember.  Now some memories start coming back...but how do I write them down?  Seeing them on paper makes them seem so insignificant.

A lot of my childhood memories involve my Grandma; being at her home, her "Grandma Hugs" as she'd call them, her and my Grandpa's teasing...

She used to cut the "string" part of my celery so I wouldn't choke; I wish I could ask her why she was worried about that.  In the early parts of my childhood she loved being outside- sitting in a lawn chair with Gramps, shooting the breeze with neighbors and friends, watching my sister and I color with chalk on the driveway.  My sister and I would play "restaurant",wear her apron, and make food.  Of course the only food on the menu was toast, but She and Gramps would faithfully order toast every time.  She would babysit my sister and I in the summers.  One summer she also watched my second cousins and the neighbor kids across the street (one still a best friend of mine).  Sometimes it got crazy, but she made us lunch everyday and would take us to the park.  My favorite lunch was tuna fish on white bread with good ol' potato chips.  Whenever we spent the night, she would make our favorite meal for dinner (hotdish in the winter, taco salad in the summer).  We would wear Grandpa's over sized, white t-shirts as pajamas and he would make cinnamon rice (with raisins of course!) for our night time treat, and off to bed we'd go.  Of course my sister and I would keep the end table light on and make shadow puppets on the wall.  We'd giggle and talk, but we were never scolded to go to sleep.  In the morning we would have pancakes and Grandma would read her newspaper from front to back.  In between the meal times, She and Gramps would take us places or have fun days at home playing dress up with my aunt's old prom dresses and Gram's jewelry.  Some days we would walk to the park and feed the ducks, listening to Gramps crack jokes.  Other days we would go for a drive, eat dairy queen ice cream cones, and gawk at large homes, imagining what it would be like to live inside, but feeling completely content with the life we had inside her little red, Doge 600. It may sound strange and unbelievable, but at a very young age I can remember feeling grateful. There would be many celebrations of anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, and simple togetherness at her home.  I would get so excited for these occasions and feel so much love and joy during them.  There was so much laughter; I can still hear her laughing so loud and hard at a simple joke. There was card playing, joke telling, food eating, and just enjoying family.  She always had a listening ear for my sister and I no matter how looooong the stories could get; I will always appreciate that.  She would share funny stories and give advice.  As I grew out of childhood, these traditions stayed the same, but were slightly modified.  My senior year of college I moved in with my Grandparents and will be so grateful for those memories the rest of my life.  Gram knew all of my friends, and most of them knew her.

A few months ago, Gram had to be moved to a nursing home.  It was an extremely difficult time, but each time I'd visit she would greet me with a huge smile and say "Well, hi Hon"  She would say it in the same way, the same excitement/surprise, even if she knew I was on my way.  Some nights I would help her get ready for bed and she would hug me SO tight and say "How did Gram get so lucky?"  There is one day I will always remember and it was just a few months ago:

"Well. Hi Hon!" Grandma said cheerfully as I entered her tiny, cramped room.  She was sitting in an uncomfortable chair the nursing home provided.  She was wearing her light-weight, red shirt, jeans, and had the blue prayer shawl her church gave her wrapped around her shoulders.  She had fallen asleep, and her gray hair was matted from where her head had been resting on her hands.  I moved her walker out of the way as I walked over to her bed to sit down.  "So what's new?" she asked.  Don't tell her you think you're pregnant, don't tell her you think you're pregnant... I repeated to myself as I straightened up the mound of newspapers scattered around her bed.  "Not much, just work" I managed to blurt out.  We chatted about random things for a while, then she told me about her chemo pills.  As we were talking, her sweet roommate came rolling in her wheel chair.  Every time the woman came in or out of the room, she and my Gram would holds hands for a moment.  I smiled as I watched them hold hands and Gram asked how she was doing.  A while later I asked Gram if she wanted to get out of the room for a little while, she did so I wheeled her down to the community room.  We chatted as we sat in front of the huge picture window and watched the sun go down.  It was a beautiful, late August night, and I ached to be chatting with her outside her own house.  Not this smelly, loud, depressing nursing home.  An elderly resident approached us and we chatted with him for a while.  He was a very happy man with a lot of stories.  The majority of the conversation made sense, but as he was walking away he said "Well, we are gonna get a foot of snow tonight! "  After he was out of sight, Gram and I began laughing.  We sat in silence for a while and looked out the window again.  The sun was going down, it was getting late.  She could read my thoughts and said "I suppose we should head back to the room, it's getting late".  Her once joyful face turned to such sadness and she cried a little.  She told me she wanted to go home.  We did this each time I had to leave.  I couldn't take it anymore.  No Jana, do not tell her, you don't know for sure. "Grandma, I have a secret.  I think I am pregnant."

I wish I could accurately describe how her face lit up.  Her once sad tears turned into tears of complete joy and she grabbed my hand.  "Grandma, I THINK, I don't know for sure, but you cannot tell anyone." I reminded her.  "I am so excited!" She said with a smile, "Don't tell your Grandpa, he can't keep a secret".  I began to share with her about how nervous I was.  "Don't worry, just go with it" she advised me, still smiling with tears in her eyes.  After it was confirmed by a doctor that I was, in fact, pregnant, my husband and I gathered my Grandparents and Aunt to tell them the news.  Of course everyone was excited, but my favorite moment was my Grandma's knowing smile and big wink.

My thoughts are interrupted by my family coming in the hospital room.  We catch up a little, and I leave the room as one of my Grandma's brothers comes in.  We give him a moment with her and I hurt inside seeing him cry.  We all take turns alone with her, and I feel grateful to be surrounded by family.  My mom and sister come and I asked my sister if she wants alone time with her.  She asks me to stay and pray.  She sits on one side of the hospital bed and I on the other.  She asks me to pray, but I can't.  I ask her to do it instead.  I'm holding her warm, comforting  hand and  feel like I could burst with sadness. I know this will be last time I hold her hand.  She will never meet her great granddaughter; my daughter will never know her.  All I can do is share the beautiful memories.  My sister is praying that Jesus be with her, forgive her sins, and help her to not feel scared.  Right at the moment my sister says "amen" Gram's breathing changes.  Everything inside me says "GO, GET THE REST OF THE FAMILY, THIS IS IT."  We are all around her bed now, Grandpa right next to her.  The nurse is calmly rubbing her shoulder, checking her pulse.  I can't stop crying.  I think I might throw up from crying so hard.  Grandpa is crying.  My chest hurts.  My husband is holding me.  She takes her last few breaths, it was so calm and peaceful.  She is gone.  Grandpa is crying, shaking her shoulder in disbelief.  The nurse checks her pulse again and confirms, she is gone.  She is free from pain.  She  can't be gone.  We still have so much to talk about.  The Chaplin comes in and reads a bible verse while holding Gram's hand.  We all hold hands and say a prayer.  We stay in the room a short while, then decide to go into the family lounge.  I look back as Grandpa lifts the sheet up to her neck and kisses the top of her head.  This is the last time I will see them together.

We are all crying.  My aunt begins making plans to collect her things from the nursing home.  I feel irritated, but envious of her ability to think of these things when Gram has been gone for only minutes.  My uncle says how funny life is.  It doesn't matter what sort of issues you may have with someone, when they are gone you forget about the negative and only think about how much you want them back.  My husband comes back with me to her room to say goodbye one more time.  She already looks so different.  I don't want to leave her in the room alone.  My husband reminds me, it's not her spirit, just her body.  Who truly knows what happens after death.  Ecclesiastes 12:7 says, "Then the dust returns to the earth (this is the body), and the Spirit or the soul returns to the God that gave it".  I imagine my Grandma with my dad and God, free from their earthly, disabled bodies, and I take comfort in that.  I tell her I love her, and we leave the room.

I look down at Grandma's Timex watch that is now on my wrist.  The date says 11/13/12... but it is actually the 14th.  I laugh to myself as I think no wonder she was always late to everything...