1:35 p.m. - 09/10/03
take my love, for love is everlasting.
to continue, despite the intermission...the interruption of other entries...
Pt. 3: Lay You Down
Remembering Monday is not an easy thing. It stands out as the day that hope returned, for many of us; what happened in small form on Sunday - in the hours of waiting while we watched her fight and gained back our faith, before things turned ugly again - happened largely on Monday. My mom came home late that night from the hospital, saying that things looked better. I was sorry that I hadn't been there to see so myself, but mostly because I felt like rotten not being there, not because I was worried we were on the edge of something.
What needs to be understood, as much as it can by anyone, is how sudden this was. My grandmother has emphysema; she's had it for many years...she's been on oxygen for over ten, I think. (I know. I can't deal with the past tense right now...even though it means she's finished suffering.) Her health, in general, has been fragile, and as much as this might make what happened seem inevitable, seem expected, honestly it just lulled us into a false security. Grandma's health was always a little sub-par, and she often spent a day or two in the hospital, looking not so good, returning home. I didn't hesitate to buy into that when the option was offered me. I spent Monday night divided between the thoughts I've berated myself over for months (of what I would do if she died) and how I could express the feelings I was having to her when she returned home. I started to think about how silly it was to wait until she was gone, and how I would tell her everything when she was well again, home again, back where she belonged, at the edge of the dining room table telling stories.
Only at the end and very beginning of Monday did I really think of my grandma, and I'm sorry for that, but it's not to be helped. Less than twenty minutes after we arrived at St. Mary's, I was walking alone to the hallway outside my grandma's room, and I saw a girl who looked like Tracy lying in an ICU bed, tubes hooked up to her, struggling. I walked four steps or so away from the window before I stopped myself and went back. I took a deep breath and looked back in; an old women was lying in the bed, a crone mother nothing like our lost blossom of a girl. I tried to gather myself and walked on, but when my mom wasn't outside my grandma's door, I sidestepped everyone and ran back to a pretty abandoned waiting area I remembered from the two-years-ago spring. I started bawling, hardly able to breathe. I was absolutely, horribly shaken up. My "survivor's guilt" (which the doctor reminded me just last night is bound to skyrocket in times like this) was at its highest, and I was bawling and begging for forgiveness. And as much trouble as I've had with Tracy's ...death... it was a nasty blow to see her dying. Those are the moments I try not to think of - her in the hospital, her mom looking over her, the Christmas gifts that went unopened, already wrapped and marked with her name, already under the tree. After awhile, I went back to my mom, still shaking, still weeping, and of course everyone assumed I was upset again over my grandma. My mom held me, and I couldn't stand everyone thinking I was a good, dramatic granddaughter, when really I was upset about something (almost) entirely separate, so I finally croaked, "I saw a girl who looked like Tracy" and Mom cooed and questioned in response. I couldn't take the questions. I managed to explain that the girl hadn't actually been there, to which my mom responded, "You mean she came to see you?!" and I was like, "NO. It wasn't her. I've...had other experiences...with her...and this wasn't like that." She didn't come to see me. She wouldn't do something like that. She wouldn't attack me that way. She would never give me that image; it came up from the back of my mind. Mom pressed about the other experiences...had I seen her before? The doctor would ask this, too, and what I would say? No, except in dreams...? Yes, everytime someone walks by with her hair, her profile, her frame? What was I supposed to say? I broke down and asked to go home; Mom drove me. Just before we left, she asked if I wanted to see Grandma; I said, "Not right now." If I'd gone in, I would have had one last conversation with her, one last conversation during which she could speak to me. I lay down and slept most of the day, still hurting, still terrified. Still guilty. By the time Mom came home, I was a little calmer, able to say that I was sorry I hadn't been there, able to admit I truly hadn't been able to stay at that moment. "Maybe tomorrow I can go back," I said, and Mom nodded in a comforting matter. Things looked better. I didn't need to worry.
Grandma would prefer this, me resting, me breathing deeply. "Your spirit's so accessible at times like this," my mom said. "I hadn't thought about it, but we need to be really careful to take care of you, too." (She'd forget this by morning, but when she said it, I felt comforted. She'd forget it in the terror of being orphaned, in the rush of Tuesday, in the moments when her thoughts rushed out without anyone to edit them. When she said, "I wonder how much longer [your Aunt Ann] has left" - breaking my heart at one of the only moments it felt strong. When she started questioning about Tracy again, when she asked if I thought Trace "hadn't crossed over."
"God! Oh, God, no. Awgh." I looked at her like she had punched me in the chest and stomach, successively. I wanted to ask what was wrong with her, what she was thinking, but I already knew. I knew what was wrong, and I knew why she wasn't thinking. I wanted my dad, back when I didn't feel abandoned by him, back when it didn't hurt to have him and my mom in too close a proximity. I didn't know that he had come Monday night, walking in through the doctor's entrance - because he was wearing his scrubs and no one stopped him. I didn't know what would happen when he eventually did come.)
Pt. 4: Let It Go, Let It Be
Tuesday. I knew I'd get here at some point. I slipped in through the back way, through the memories of wanting my dad there, through the things my mom said. I didn't want to go in directly. I hadn't slept well Monday night (do I ever sleep well?); I'd been up for a few hours reading, and had only been in bed about an hour or two, when my mom came into my room, hectic, rushed, afraid. My grandma's vitals were dropping significantly, and we'd been told to get to the hospital as soon as we could. She was leaving.
"Should I come?" I said, begging from my bed for guidance.
"If you want," she said, running out again. "I'm leaving now!"
I ran to change, to find my shoes; my glasses were missing entirely. I searched everywhere around my bed where they'd normally be (as if "normally" applies your second week in a new home, when everything's been turned upside-down), then around the couch where I'd read in the night. I was ready to leave without them - my mom was yelling, and I was gulping down meds - when I caught a glimpse of them on an end table in the living room. We ran down the three flights of steps, into the car, flew down streets, cursed stoplights. We pulled into the parking garage, jumped from the car, and before I knew what was happening, my mom was sprinting for the elevator. She's a good deal taller than I am, so I struggled to keep up, and inside, when the elevators were not fast enough for her, I struggled up the steps. I couldn't breathe; I never can when I run, but it didn't seem like a moment when I could point this out, even to my own mom. Much of the next few days would feel that way. Mom would say, "She's my mom," and I would say, "But she's my grandma." Mom would say, "She's my *mom*" and I would want to say, "But *you're* mine..."
In her room, my grandma's eyes would closed. They'd stay closed, except when the nurses bent over to open and shine lights in them. We were told that she could hear us, hard to believe, except that her blood pressure rose steadily every time we started to sing a favorite hymn to her, or when someone leaned in and spoke to her. Moments after we got there, I said what I knew Sunday I needed yet to say. I said thank you, for everything. I told her how grateful I was for all she'd done and all she'd taught me, and how I wouldn't forget any of that. I told her, as best one can in words, how much I loved her. I kissed her eyebrows, brushed her hair with my hand, and held her hand in the other.
She held on for a long while, and the hallway turned into a mockery of cell phone culture. Someone had thought to bring my grandma's phone and address book, and we were tracking down the closest and most remote of family and friends. I eventually got a hold of my brother John and told him he needed to get to the hospital immediately. I fumbled over the words I'd heard others saying. That things were worse. That one of two things, entirely separate from the pneumonia, had gone wrong, and even if they managed to figure out which thing had gone wrong (which they hadn't yet)...the only option (either way) was surgery, and in her best health, she's not a candidate for surgery. They had made her very comfortable, which unfortunately caused her inability to be alert. The peace in her room was growing, in an inverse balance with the grief outside. I called my dad to tell him, also, and to have him call Dale - because I didn't have the new number on me, and I knew Dad did. (I'd given it to him.) He asked, of course, if he needed to come; that's when I found out he'd been there the night before. I told him what I would have told a stranger, what I would have told anyone who loved my grandma, completely disregarding his role as my father, knowing - with whatever pain - that he couldn't really fulfill that role. I told him it was up to him. This was final, and if he felt the need to come, he should.
He started talking about his work schedule, and whether or not he could move it around, and I wanted to hang up on him, but I didn't. Sunday night, I'd also started wanting to forgive him. It's a trite response, but it was overwhelming, real. I was talking with Stewert, at that point the only other grandchild present (as was often the case), and I felt the urge to kick him hard, again and again and again. I also felt strongly, that I wanted to let go of this. I'm not a person to hold grudges in relationships; I occasionally hold them against, say, a musician who writes a really bad song, and then some decent songs...I have trouble admitting the later songs are decent. But not in relationships. I didn't know how to forgive here, though. And let me make it clear that by forgive I only mean I wanted to be free from the burdens of anger and hatred. It bothered me that I connected to Stu at all, that we were at all able to talk, that he felt at all like family. I didn't want to feel that. I spent a long night thinking about how I could possibly forgive him, bothered most by what he did to Anna, which worried me. It seemed I was capable of forgiving him for what he did to me, but not to my cousin, which basically meant, I was capable of minimizing my own abuse, and that's not so much forgiveness. I couldn't think of a way to let the anger go without betraying Anna, until the next day when I realized that the point was to be love as much as possible. I hated hating him because it was an impediment to being in the love I want to fill me. I needed to let go of that, not because he didn't deserve that, or because I no longer thought what he did was horrible, but because I couldn't possibly hold all the anger and hatred against all the injustices I'd be compelled to if I decided to live that way. If I decided to hold the hatred of this injustice, I would have to hate what happened to me, what happened to Anna, what he did, who he is, the lies and half-truths he's told his wife, the things he hasn't told his wife, abuse in general, so on and so forth until I don't have energy left for everything else. I think it's the same with eating disorders and pro-ana and all that other bullshit I talk about hating - that I do think is bullshit, and I do hate. I can't do any good hating it. If I do, all my energy will go there. And so, even though this is just the beginning of what I imagine will be a very long and difficult process (moreso with my dad)...I want to let go of it. Let go of hating him. I don't want to absolve him, and I'm not going to pretend I don't care what happened or that I'm not still angry, but I want to have less and less anger. I want to stop carrying all that condemnation in my heart and just live, if I can...if I ever pull out of where I am again. If I'm ever safe.
Pt. 5: O Beautiful Mother, On This Day We Give Thee Our Love
We'd been sitting around for hours. The lack of sleep, weird food, and stress was catching up to me. I'd eaten a late breakfast and cancelled an 11:00 doctor's appointment to stay where I was: holding my grandma's hand. As the afternoon progressed, everyone agreed she was waiting for something, or for someone. I had a sister flying in from New York (the day before I would have flown to meet her), a brother driving in from Kansas City, and another unable to get away from Nashville. My aunt Jean and my uncles John and Joe (the two oldest) were all traveling in from a distance. Many believed it was John, her firstborn son and pride (my grandma was powerfully Catholic, and John became a priest) that she was waiting for, but even after he arrived, her unsteady vitals remained unsteady, refusing to indicate anything. I chose to contend that she was holding out for Jean, who wouldn't get in until 11:00 that night...wishful thinking. I was praying she'd hold on long enough for Sarah to see her, which meant six or six-thirty p.m. Leaning on her unsteady signs and these beliefs, I decided a little after three that I simply had to sleep. I tried to nap in the waiting room, but found it impossible and knew it would remain so. Determined to be awake for the evening/ night, when I was sure she'd go, I asked for a quick ride home, where I would sleep, grab some energy, and come back. John, who was also exhausted and sleep-deprived, agreed to take me; he wanted to go home and clean his apartment, believing Dale planned to sleep there. Mom and Dad promised to call the moment things turned urgent.
I had barely closed my eyes, and John had just closed his door, when the phone rang. A doctor had gone into my grandma's room and stated very plainly that she was only alive because of the machines. Their efforts to make her comfortable were having less and less effect, and the doctor urged them - unless someone *needed* her to wait (like Jean, or Joe, or Sarah) - to turn off the machines and let her find her peace. That was the phone call we received, my dad saying, "they've decided to turn off the machines. You need to come right away." John turned right back around, picked me up, and flew to the hospital.
We walked out of the elevator to find Dad sitting on the bench just opposite it, looking like a man with a guilty secret (other than the ones I know about.) It didn't occur to me at all what it could be, not at first. I just started to move toward my grandma's room, while John hesitated with my dad, and finally I said, "Well? What's going on?"
"They turned off the machines," Dad said. "She's gone."
chord
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