I got a call from my mom the other day. This in itself isn’t terribly unusual, but what she had to say is. Apparently my grandmother is pretty ill. Ill enough to admit to being utterly incapacitated. The fact that she will admit that something is wrong means that whatever it is, it’s pretty serious.
Now I know that my grandparents are no spring chickens. They’re both well into their 70’s now, and have been showing slight signs for a few years of that human wear and tear that we all know so well (first and foremost being telling the same stories over and over and over and over….). But other than that, they’ve been really quite self-sufficient and have managed to successfully battle the illnesses life’s thrown at them (heart attacks, cancer, diabetes to name a few).
Now it seems that time has finally caught up, and my grandmother seems to have aged 10 years in the past week or so. This completely and utterly freaks me out. My grandparents have been a huge part of my life, for as long as I’ve lived it. Heck, I grew up down the street from them. Now that their health has taken a turn for the worse, I’m realizing that I’m the furthest thing from okay with that. I’ve always just expected that they’d be around for everything in my life – and now that I’m realizing that they won’t, I’m incredibly terrified.
Goddammit I hate talking about feelings. Maybe I’ll just delete this.
Jen: I wish I could do something for ya. My grandmother died suddenly last march and then in Aug I watched my other grandmothers boyfriend turn from a healthy 80 year old into… well, he ended dying within a week.
It’s not a fun thing to experiance at all, expecially if you were at all close to the person who is headed towards that direction. Sadly, there’s not much you can do about it.
Are they at all close enough for you to visit them. If so, that is often a good way to come to terms with it, even though it can be hard, they will most likely be coheriant enough to know that your around even if they don’t show it.
Good luck with it babe.
*hugs*
oh, hon… like Devon, I understand. When Nana died last year, I thought my world had ended. She practically raised me. Just spend as much time with them as you can.
One thing I wish I’d done with Nana… is talked more about her early life. She lived SO long, through all sorts of things. What little I did talk to her about was always bloody fascinating… I wish I’d done more.
i know exactly what you mean.. my grandfather is dying right now, and it’s completely terrifying.. *hugs*