"The Christmas Day Kitten" -- watching death

[pd Rydia]

I watched someone die today.

This isn't a bid for sympathy, or a pity me post. I'm not even particularly torn up, in fact. It's just

I've never watched someone die before. It was very, very strange.

You see, my granma was diagnosed with "pre-cancer" around September or so. And about every few weeks I kept being told "Granma's worse." Lately, it's been about every day.

Well, Mom faught so that Granma could get some Hospice program thing, so she could get a hospital set-up and private nurse at her house, and pass away at home. The doctors had just approved it--you have to be given less than 6 months in order to be approved. A few days ago, they said it'd be less than 6 months. With no exaggeration, the next day, it was 3 months. The next day, it was a week. When Mom picked me up yesterday, she said it might be a couple days.

They just brought her home this morning. She'd been here for 45 minutes. This house, she's lived here for over 50 years. Fifty-six, I think Mom said. She and Granpa lived here together almost their whole marriage, I guess. As soon as they had my dad, at least. Well, anyway. After she'd been here not even an hour, the people from Hospice showed up and started setting up her bed...Dad and I were out in the living room helping him...and Mom came out with something all over her shirt--I don't know if it was spilt water, soup, vomit... She told us Granma was going.

Mom, Dad, my youngest brother and I went back, and were there for Granma as she passed away. It only took maybe five or ten minutes. It was...the strangest thing.

She kept staring at something in the middle of the air, at a point just beyond the middle of the room. Mom kept trying to talk to her for some reason, but she wouldn't be distracted. She moved her mouth a bit, talking silently. She jerked when Mom kissed her hand, and then jerked a few more times afterwards. Closed her eyes, and passed on.

She was so white. She was white as soon as I came back, when Mom told us she was going away. Just that morning I had come in to spend time with her, and was talking with her about when we used to go to the zoo, and pick out patterns for my dresses when I was a kid. She was every bit as beautiful as she ever was--ever picky about her looks, she was. But when Mom called us back, she was...deathly white, and her skin was sunken. I've never seen that before. And she'd stopped breathing. It took me a while to realize that. I just kept staring at her and thinking, "No, that's not right."

I'd never seen my brother cry so much. Mom was almost frantic. Dad still didn't know how to handle it--he walked out when he could. But he did what he could to be useful, calling people, his sister, or rather, her husband.

I think what made me cry the most was watching Granma in pain. When she passed on, there was a big weight lifted--I don't dare say this to my family, I'm not sure they'd all understand, but in some way, I'm happy. It's better than her living the way she was...unable to eat, unable to drink, in pain all over, barely able to breathe, her whole body coming out of her in pieces. She's not in pain anymore, she got to pass away in the home she lived in for most of her life with her husband, and if there is any afterlife, then she is there with Granpa. No more worrying about diabetes, sugar, fat, carbs, pounds, clothes, housecleaning, bills, money, yardwork, cooking, dishes...silly woman tried to take care of too much. Bout time she rested.

I guess I'm still a bit shocked. I guess that's why I'm writing this out. That, and a hope to find out if anyone's had similar experiences, or other relevant thoughts to share. I'd just like to talk to people other than my family about this. <p>

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<center><small>"We are just poor, wandering corn farmers..."

</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=pdrydia>pd]&nbsp; at: 12/10/04 22:53

[WillBaseton]

Well, Dia, I've never watched anyone actually die, but I DID watch my stepgrandfather go through the phases just last Christmas. Every time I'd see him, he'd look a little more tired, a little more forlorn, a little more...I guess the word would be rotten. Every time, something was missing. Eventually, he didn't recognize any of us. His memory was completely gone, and the only thing at my house he truly remembered was our dog, Max. Max LOVED Grampa Bill. Bill loved him, and at the end, he usually couldn't even remember his own wife, who visited him almost daily.

When I came home for Christmas break last year, we went to my Memere's house for Christmas Eve. She had brought Grampa Bill, who was staying in a nursing home at that point, to our house just a few days earlier, and I saw the familiar birdhouse-building, wisecracking "replacement grandfather" (my real Pepere walked out on my family before I was born) that had always been there, but it was a shadow, reflected only in his eyes and in a few scant phrases he spoke. The only time any memories would resurface were when Max would be touching him. We couldn't get Max away from him. He was always either sitting on Bill's foot, rubbing against him, or staring right into his eyes. I think the dog knew something was wrong with him, and stayed as close to him as possible as a way of protecting him.

Anyway, back to Memere's house. I overheard her talking to my mom and dad about Grampa Bill, saying that "he didn't recognize it was Christmas, but the doctors say he's got a few months left on him at best". I shrugged and put it aside for mental reference, hoping he'd be okay, but knowing it was pointless. He was already gone, as far as I was concerned.

The next day (Christmas Day), Memere called our house. Grampa Bill had died in his sleep. I'm not usually the kind of person to get sad, and I didn't cry or anything. My father spent the ensuing days gathering photographs of Bill from his childhood to his WWII days to the last time he was at our house. He made a Powerpoint slideshow featuring Bill, one that ended with a picture of Bill and Max. I felt it was very fitting, and it was played on loop for the entire funeral. I sat through the funeral in dead silence, until one of my uncles read his speech on Bill, and mentioned the things Bill did for my family, including the aforementioned birdhouse. I got hit with a few flashbacks, and simply hugged my Memere when the funeral was over. It really was all I could do.

I guess it's not really the same thing, but it's similar. I do know how it feels to have someone there one day, and gone the next. Or in your case, there one hour, and gone just several later. Regardless, my best wishes are with your family right now. <p>

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The closer you get to light, the greater your shadow becomes.</p>

[pd Rydia]

Granma got to see her dogs and cat before she went, too. Samantha (cat) got to lay in her lap, Sampson (her dog) waddled his way over to her, and our dog who's been living with her waggled her way all over the room and didn't leave the whole time we were all in there. Amber though, she had no idea what was going on--sweet dog, just very brainless. People who've visited me know all about that.

It's funny, Granpa also served in World War II. As a border guard--by the time he was sent over, the war was officially over, from what I understand. That's how he met Granma in the first place. If I remember correctly, she lied about her age to him originally, because she was only 17 when they married. *chuckles*

Granpa's ashes are on top of a shelf back in her room, with his flag folded up behind the boxed urn--he and the flag will all be buried with her. I think that'll be around Monday or so. Thank you for your well-wishing. <p>

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<center><small>"We are just poor, wandering corn farmers..."

</p>

[PriamNevhausten]

My maternal grandmother passed on some nearly ten years ago. It was a very trying affair for my entire family--not that a death in the family usually is not, but this case was particularly stressful, because my grandmother had over the previous few years sunken deep into some form of dementia (which was originally, though erroneously, diagnosed as Alzheimer's Disease, if that tells you anything of the symptoms).

When I remember my grandmother, I recall most specifically times when I was quite young--five to eight years old--and I was over at their house because Mom needed to be there for some reason or another. I remember playing the Wheel of Fortune board game that I had received as a birthday present with my grandmother and grandfather, and I recall having played a card game simply called 'five hundred' with my grandmother and sister on a number of occasions. She was lucid then, she was still a person. She was aware.

When she passed--or rather I should say not long before she passed--she was something...less. Hardly able to make out any words at all, rarely able to walk under her own power even with a walker or other device, she was not unlike a very young child, except physically larger and with a different, though equally distinct and somehow potent, fragrance. It's strange how older people can have a certain smell.

Mom continually watched over her, because nobody else among her six brothers and sisters stepped up. We housed her in the room that had formerly been my own, as the extra bedroom was in the basement; stairs were a strictly no-go situation. She fed her at dinnertime with the family, she took her, arm over shoulder, from place to place, she labored day in and day out over the mother that she knew but who progressively became less and less able to remember. Anything.

Eventually, after some two months of this, we ended up moving her to a nursing home, and then into Hospice. I don't think she was there more than a month before the clock stopped. I was not there for the actual event, which is probably better because I was right in the formative period of my Stoic belief structuring, but I am told that when she died, there was a similar staring-at-something-that-was-not-there phenomenon. My mother said she must have been looking at Jesus.

Among us, it seemed only Mom was really disturbed by the fact of her passing, though I will readily admit I did not pay very much attention to my aunts' and uncles' reactions--it seemed that everyone knew it was coming and was pretty well prepared. I know, though, that Mom was ready for it: perhaps as a method of telling me her feelings without telling me her feelings, she'd had me type up a sort of essay she'd written about the process and history of Grandma's slip into oblivion. "...I no longer wish to outlive my mother," she had said. Somehow, still, I did not really grieve for Grandma; I hardly knew the woman.

That's a bit of a digression from the segue that I had originally intended, but my point is this: Know that we are all here for you, no matter the circumstance, if you need--or even if you don't need. You are not alone. <p><span style="font-size:xx-small;">"It's in the air, in the headlines in the newspapers, in the blurry images on television. It is a secret you have yet to grasp, although the first syllable has been spoken in a dream you cannot quite recall." --Unknown Armies</span></p>

[Choark]

Umm I did have something else to say but it got lost so I'll just say whats important:

I hope you and your family are doing well and get throuh this. Some deaths are never easy no matter how right the death felt. Plus deaths that effect everyone around you badly are really hard to cope with.

Anywho: Thoughts are with you and ... what Priam said. <p><div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> </div>
<div style="text-align:center"> Something cute plots your death </div></p>

[Besyanteo]

My Grandmother actually passed just recently as well. I never mentioned anything about it to anyone (It'd be news to Dave if he read it here, for example) for the same reasons Dia mentioned at the top of her initial post. As seems to happen fairly commonly, or as told so far here, I feel Grandma was dead before her body actually gave out. One day, she forgot us, her grand children, and we could live with that because Mom could kinda jar it from her memory if she tried. Then she forgot Mom, and I believe another of her sister's and I knew that everything else wasn't far off.

One thing that Grandma asked her three daughters, years ago when they all lived under her roof and I wasn't even a twinkle in anybody's eye yet, that when she was old and gray that they would never put her in a retirment home, or anything of the like. So naturally, her oldest (an aunt that I didn't much care for to begin with) did put her in one after a few years. I credit her for taking care of her for those years that she did so, and... I guess I sort of pitty her. Grandma stopped eatting, and died about a week after being put in that place. I know that in life she believed very strongly in heaven and god, and she knew she was going to a better place. And I share those beleifs, so it was pretty easy for me to handle her death. Mom was a wreck for a good while. She didn't get to talk to Grandma when she went. She was at work, So was Kristen. I was in the shower I believe, and James... Well, he just never picks up the phone. Much like James never does anything else unless there's some sort of masive consequences to not doing it (and sometimes he refuses to do thoe things anyway.) This was right after Dad's most recent surgery, so he was dead dog asleep and mom had turned off the ringer on the phone in their room.

Arr. So, it's a very round and round and round about way of sayying it, but I can sympathize Dia. <p>

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<div style="text-align:center">Jeridan the Red Nosed Garoujin, had a very shiny nose!<br />And if you ever saw it, you'd even say it glowed.<br />All of the other Garou, laughed and called him names!<br />And then poor Jeridan, lost his temper and blasted their brains!</div></p>

[Will Rennar]

I can't find any way of putting this in words, Dia, but I do hope you and your family will be alright through this. <p>Will Rennar / Asura Calibre

The Rosetta Stone -- The Sketchpad -- Asura's Harem</p>

[pd Rydia]

Today was visitation...I had no idea it would hit me like it did.

There was a wonderful framed image, a collage of various other photos (scanned and manipulated) from throughout her life. There was also a DVD slide type thing of many images of her I'd never seen, beautiful images from France, before my parents, before my older brothers, before me, and more recently. Flowers were still coming in after we showed up, and visitors were beginning to show up as I had to leave.

Seeing her corpse...with makeup...stitchings...it just. Someone went through a lot of effort to make her look like she did while she was alive. But I saw her on Friday... I stayed in the room with her after she died for an hour, holding her hand when I could, and it didn't bother me at all. But couldn't even get near the casket. I was so incredibly...creeped out, for lack of a better term.

I wish I could have stayed, to see all the people show up to pay respect to her memory and share stories with each other. As I was leaving, one of the ladies who worked at the Krispy Kreme donut shop we used to always go to had arrived, and predicted more of her coworkers to come. Even the receptionist at the Funeral home knew Granma, because she had taught her children French in preschool. It's amazing how many people she knew, and who knew her...she was involved in a lot. Always active.

Thanks to those who have expressed concern and best wishes--really, the family is doing alright, and I am, too. It's just all very strange. And thanks for those who have shared their own stories. <p>

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<center><small>"We are just poor, wandering corn farmers..."

</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=pdrydia>pd]&nbsp; at: 12/12/04 14:35

[pd Rydia]

Err...you're welcome. It just kind of seems odd to be thanked for that. Honestly, I'm not sure I could have left Granma without trying very hard...it would have gone against my conscience. It was my last chance to be with her, you know? And on the other hand, I was less looking at it as "Granma leaving me" than "Granma's suffering ending." Granma going to rest, giving up her worries, going to Granpa. I imagine it'd be harder to handle when someone's thinking about how they're leaving.

Still makes me sad, that people would leave when their family wants them...especially when they'll never have a chance to make it up again. I'm not sure I'd be able to handle working in that type of environment. <p>

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<center><small>"We are just poor, wandering corn farmers..."

</p>Edited by: [url=http://p068.ezboard.com/brpgww60462.showUserPublicProfile?gid=pdrydia>pd]&nbsp; at: 12/12/04 15:10

[Celeste of Elvenhame]

Dia, I want to thank you for doing the hardest thing a family member ever has to do. My mother and I both work in different nursings homes. A lot of the time a family will decide they don't want to deal with the emotional impact and leave a relative alone to die. While on one side I can kinda understand this, on the other it hurts to watch someone dying and know they want their family, the family won't come.


*bows respectfully* <p>---------------Celeste of Elvenhame ---------------

Aaron Lewis of Guildportal: On the up side though, most of the remaining bugs are genuinely evil, sentient beings that actively dodge attempts to thwart them.</p>