[This was stuck in my wordpress unpublished queue, and i just noticed it. i suppose i wrote it sometime in mid february while making memorial plans]
Other people’s ideas of death rituals are… ritualistic. What they don’t seem to understand is that the ceremonies and customs and mores and whatever else they attach to their deaths are not necessarily what one might want for one’s self. And by one, I mean my Grandmother.
While she subscribed to a religion, she wasn’t practicing. While she went to funerals, she didn’t like them. She wanted people to have a party, and that’s the plan. She wanted to be cremated with a minimum of fuss.
Other folks keep asking us why we aren’t having a memorial service of some kind. Possibly even religious. Because she didn’t want one. Period.
We had a small memorial today for my gram. We had a a nice early afternoon champagne brunch and told stories about her with family in Sausalito: it was perfect. The food, the wine, the company, and the stories.
We brought Gram along for the event. A custom urn will be in the making for a few months, so we bought her a really lovely box to hang out temporarily. We had about 20 amazing photos, and brought some of her favorite things (zip ties, crosswords, Royal Secret cologne) and set her up with about 4 dozen roses.
After everyone left and we packed things up to take her back to my Mom’s place. We drove back to 101 along Bridgeway—the main drag in Sausilito. A huge tangerine colored moon hung low over the water as we drove along the water.
She would have loved everything about the day and evening.
Well here she is in her mid-fifties, rocking a tangerine caftan on her honeymoon in the Bahamas (The Loews Paradise Island Hotel and Villa), and looking totally. freaking. fierce.
The dramatic dress, the perfect frosted hair, not a pore on her face or décolletage, the strappy heels, the gold jewelry, and the ever present cigarette (about to ash on the carpet).
This could be any night at home as well. She would go to a favorite restaurant (Stewart Anderson’s Black Angus, perhaps), and bring home a doggy bag with half of a rare strip steak and some garlic bread. I was usually the lucky recipient of this treat.
The family has been going through boxes of photos and reminiscing. We found the weirdest little thing: a keychain photo viewfinder souvenir thingum from a vacation resort. It’s like a telescope with a lens on one end, and a frosted light filtering cap on the other end with a slide/picture inside. You hold it up to one eye, point it at a light source and get a single slide slideshow.
The image inside this silly box is AMAZING. I can’t describe how well it captures the things I loved about her.
I asked my pal Nina how I could get it out of the viewfinder thingum and into the world. She suggested Urban Digital Color. I described the thingum on the phone to the proprietor Griff, who told me to bring it by to see what could be done. I thought it would be impossible to open. Then I thought the positive would be glued down or otherwise unusable.
It’s all working out. He said the positive was in good shape and he could easily scan it at a resolution that would allow me to print it very large.
I’ll do a proper obit later. For now, I’ll just say she was my Grandmother, she raised me well with my Mother, she was a Registered Nurse who worked her ass off for 40 years, many of which to take care of me, and she was my buddy.
I am sitting at the nursing home being generally emotionally distressed. I thought I might as well be as physically comfortable as possible so I am wearing my kilt, which is causing endless whispers amongst the staff.
We are in a nursing home, and my grandmother is dying. Her sister, my mother, and I are taking shifts to be with her.
Her devastating stroke in September has caused a gradual decline. Until a few weeks ago she was in a lot of pain thanks to her new friend “hyperaesthesia”—an “exquisite sensitivity to stimuli.” Then we researched and were advised to place her in hospice care. She’s now getting the best—if most addictive—pain medication modern science can provide.
It was beautiful to hear her say “I am so comfortable!” when the new drugs kicked in. It was sad to discover she no longer wanted to eat or drink as the meds were ramped up to keep her comfort level stable. We asked, and she was clear about wanting to stay pain free, over wanting to eat and stay awake more.
Not allowing CPR, or ventilation, or feeding tubes is a no brainer for our family. I am tempted to feel bad that she will be gone within days because she is no longer eating… but she’s an RN and has always been clear about her wishes. She never wanted to be in this physical condition, in this place, feeling the way she does. Actually, I do feel bad, but I must respect her wishes.
I am tempted to take her home so that she can die in her own bed. But moving her would be traumatic and painful. It’s better that we let her be as peaceful as possible.
The dark side of getting old: Stuff hurts. Your bones and your skin and your muscles become delicate. Despite the best efforts of caretakers, it is easy to get bruised or worse. Painkillers become a part of daily life unless you’re live your life in bubblewrap. The sort of painkillers I’m talking about are narcotic, and these can cause constipation.
When you’re young, even the worst blockage can usually be cured with a massive dose of something foul and greasy, or an enema of some sort. It’s apparently not so easy when you get old. Sometimes your friendly caretakers have to take matters into their own hands—literally—to help out their charges.
The lighter side of this: The other day a man at gram’s nursing facility—apparently, an habitual sufferer of constipation—was hollering a blue streak in the next room. Gram said “Uh oh! I think the fairies are out.” Mom asked “What do you mean ”the fairies”?” Gram archly replied “You know: The FINGER fairies!”
I got a craving for herring in sour cream today. This happens about every 4 years, and I don’t know what brings it on. It’s powerful, and best satisfied immediately and wholeheartedly. I ate two jars of it throughout the course of the day. Shut up.
I also decided to make another pineapple upsidedown cake. This one is going straight up to the nursing home for gram and the caretakers. Hopefully it doesn’t have too much cat hair in it. The new cat (Pumpkin) decided to supervise today. He’s just barely smart enough not to stick his paw in a skillet sizzling with butter and brown sugar. Barely.
And since all of that was going so well, I also made a spaghetti sauce for no reason whatsoever. It’s a meat sauce featuring a lot of green olives and capers. I’m going to have to freeze it. I have a whole pot full of it.
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We are in a nursing home, and my grandmother is dying. Her sister, my mother, and I are taking shifts to be with her.