My grandmother is sick.
My mother’s mother – my grandma – is undergoing emergency angioplasty tomorrow to see how much damage has been done to her heart over the past few years. She’s been in the hospital since Saturday, and will likely still be in there this weekend when Hubs and I go up there. She’ll be 77 on Saturday or something like that. Still seemingly, relatively young in comparison to Hub’s grandmother who died in March at 89.
My other grandmother, the beloved matriarch of my father’s side of the family (seriously, she does everything for everyone. She’s incredible), has, what most of us think of as the early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease. A disease, I am scared to see take over her mind in the years to come.
I’ve had a hard time accepting the fact that my grandparents are getting old. It was only three years ago that my grandfather had a stroke that shook our family to the core. We all came together at Easter that year and celebrated the gift of family and giving thanks. It wasn’t Thanksgiving, but after my Papa’s stroke when my grandparents were out west visiting his family, we were all incredibly grateful that our family was still in tact and that he didn’t suffer much from it (they caught it incredibly early).
It was then that I really had to think, albeit briefly, about what would my family be like without either of those grandparents. Now, I’m trying to imagine my mother’s dysfunctional family without my grandmother (my grandpa died when I was in 4th grade). Sadly, I’m finding it all difficult, depressing and myself unwilling to even accept that it could be a reality sooner rather than later. Unfortunately, being faced with the fact that my grandparents are no longer young chicks anymore is not a fun reality.
In my twenty-six years, I haven’t had to deal with death in my family much. My grandfather (mom’s father) died in 4th grade but my parents didn’t let me go to the funeral because I was too young, next my great grandmother (nana’s mother) died when I was in ninth grade. The vision of my Nana crying will always be etched into my mind. I didn’t really have to deal with death again until 2007 – Labor Day weekend when Hubs’s uncle/Godfather passed away. He trekked up to NY and I stayed in DC because a friend was supposed to visit. I won’t go into the details, but needless to say, I didn’t get to be there for him. Most recently, his grandmother passed away earlier this spring – a wonderful, wonderful lady that I am blessed to have known albeit briefly.
I don’t think I’m strong enough to deal with death at all, to be honest. We’re humans, but I feel that we don’t often think of how to deal with the loss of our loved ones. We don’t want to, but at some point, how do we accept that the ones we love and cherish are getting older and someday won’t be around anymore? Especially when we see them getting old right before our eyes.
It’s quite depressing to think about, but each time I go home, especially with the infrequency of my visits the past nine years, I’m smacked in the face with the reality that my beloved grandparents are getting older. I’m constantly fearing the worst, unwilling to face this sad reality that I’m certain will someday smack me in the face.
Listening to my mother tonight, tell me the latest on my grandma, I couldn’t help but hear the emotion in her voice. I couldn’t help but be reminded of how tired and emotional Hubs’s mother was as she cared for her mother relentlessly in her final days. I’m scared for my grandma, she’s not very healthy, and she doesn’t do well at taking care of herself. While I’ve never been nearly as close to her as I was to my paternal grandparents, I can’t imagine her not being around yet I fear that her days are numbered.
I’m lucky though, I have had two loving sets of grandparents for much of my life, which I know, is not the case with many of my pals. I haven’t had to deal with death that much in my short life, and for that, I feel incredibly blessed. For now though, I’m not reserving the hearse, I’m keeping her in my prayers and hoping for the best. This weekend I’ll be bringing both grandmother’s a cupcake and flowers to celebrate their birthdays and let them know how grateful I am that they’re still in my life.
One of these days, I will run a race for charity. I’m fairly certain that with both my grandmothers in some way shape or form being affected by alzheimer’s and/or dementia I will likely run for the Alzheimer’s association when I, you know, actually get around to running a race for charity.
{I’ll be back with a more uplifting post tomorrow I promise, however, you can always check out my work out adventures over at Fitness in Pink}
