Life if full of new opportunities. We are faced with them nearly every second of everyday. Each conversation you have is a new opportunity to affect a relationship you have with that person. Some opportunities are not so common.
My grandma died last summer. I received a phone call from my dad that he was on his way up to the hospital because she wasn't doing as well as they had hoped after knee surgery. Grandma had a history of illness. She battled cancer at least two maybe three times. Lived with a tracheotomy for over a year from throat cancer and had many other health problems over the years. To be honest I had spent many years trying to brace myself for the phone call that my grandma, the woman who had taught me to be strong, independent, and not afraid of a good days hard work was gone. But, grandma couldn't be beat. She was a stubborn woman.
I told my dad I wanted to go with him on the trip up north to the hospital to be with our family and most importantly grandma and grandpa. We arrived in the afternoon and she was in and out of time. Some people she recognized some she didn't I won't lie and say I wasn't relived she did know me. I spent the next two days taking turns by her side. Telling her stories about my kids and talking about when I was a child and she and I had spent time together. You see in my adulthood spending time with grandma had become nearly impossible for me. Grandma suffered from compulsive hoarding. Both of things and animals. Her home was not a place I could take my children. I begged the Lord for an answer that would let me help her improve her living situation both for her health and simply so she could live and socialize comfortably with family and friends. She would have none of it. I spent many years angry. I felt like she had built a wall of stuff around her to block the rest of us out. Like she didn't want me, my husband, or my children in her life. Many invitations for her to come to us were declined. I eventually accepted that this was just who she was and I would have to do the best I could. I wrote letters, made phone calls and sent pictures when I could. The last two years of her life however I became so consumed with the day to day of raising and schooling my kids that I didn't keep in contact as much. I still pray she forgives me for that.
The time spent by her bedside I think was a gift from God to both of us. She at one point was concerned about her appearance and signed the best she could that she wanted me to comb her hair. Grandmas hair was very curly just like mine, I remember that moment well. I took out the comb and picked it through those tight curls. It took everything I had not to cry. I told her, I have always thought myself so lucky to have my grandmas curly hair. She smiled so big. Most of the next two days were spent keeping her calm, wiping her brow, and making sure she had a supply of ice chips. At a point when she was falling in and out of consciousness she sat straight up in her bed and looked me dead in the eye, reached for me and said " your a good girl Kelli Marie, I love you" I smiled with tears in my eyes and said ' you make it easy to be so good grandma, I love you too." I think those were the last words she said to me.
Grandma also had the gift of song a gift she handed down to my father and my father handed down to me. We were a musical family. Grandma loved Patsy Cline and any of those old gospel songs from Sunday church. She asked me to learn many of them so I could sing them to her over the years. My last moments with grandma were spent with me singing these songs to her. I don't know how but God granted me the ability to do it with out choking on my tears. I sang all the Patsy I could think of and my dad swears he could see her moving her mouth to sing with me. Finally, I came to what I knew what a favorite gospel. 'Just a closer walk with thee'. I hesitated, thinking it would be to strong a reminder of where this day would end for grandma. She roused a little, and shook my hand until I started singing it again. I sang it strong for grandma with the hope it would be what she heard when she went to meet St. Peter.
We went home late that night and received the phone call in the morning that Grandma had died peacefully that night with my Grandpa by her side, just like they had planned.
I have held those last days with my grandma close to my heart ever since. I thank God for a peace that I received from what I believe was a second chance to alter my relationship with a woman I loved deeply but maybe understood to little.
God rest her soul
Dedicated to Betty Belle Phillips
Great Grandpa (the groom)
