Okay, so if you’d rather not know anything personal about me, then I would most strongly suggest that you stop reading this post, oh, say about HERE.

Because the post right now, it’s about to get very much on the personal side.

Previously, I’ve blogged about my grandmother, Addie. She’s always been a great inspiration to me. Such a strong woman. Amazing, to me. And to all of her family and friends.

During the first week of July, my grandmother was scheduled to have a bit of surgery. There was a cancerous spot on her face that her doctor wanted to remove, and my grandmother–such an independent lady–wanted to have the spot taken care of so that she could go on about her business.

The surgery was performed, but, to the dismay of my family, my grandmother didn’t wake up. The doctors told us that due to her age (92–I’ve previously reported that she was 93 but time must have just erased a year), the anesthesia was probably taking longer to work out of her system.

The day after her surgery, I was at the hospital, staying my shift (my family divided shifts so that my grandmother wouldn’t be left alone). Addie woke up for a while, she talked with me.She was groggy, but coherent, and she could even answer the doctor’s questions about her medications. The doctor was very optimistic–in fact, he told me that she would probably be going home that evening, or at least the next morning.

But Addie stopped talking later. She closed her eyes and seemed to sink back into the fog of anesthesia. Later, the family would be told that she’d suffered several strokes, but, at first, it just seemed that she was sleeping.

And she continued to sleep. For weeks.

We all tried to hope for the best. After all, Addie had beaten strokes and heart attacks before. But the days just kept trickling by, and soon she had to be placed on a feeding tube.

On August 9, we got word that her condition had changed. Her vital signs had taken a “significant” turn. Her breathing was labored, and the nurse said that if family members needed to tell her anything, well, the time was now.

I didn’t really need to tell her anything–Addie already knew how I felt. But I went to her side anyway. Because she would have come to mine. And because I loved her.

At 12:51 a.m. on August 10, my grandmother passed from this world. She left behind many, many who loved her, and I like to think that she went to join the many who waited for her–the husband who had passed over twenty-five years before, and the four sons she’d had to watch slip away from her.

I hope she’s happy now, and I hope she knows how very, very much she will be missed.

I wrote my first real piece of writing for my grandmother–she was my inspiration. And she will continue to inspire me for many years to come.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 12th, 2007 at 9:44 pm and is filed under Romance. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.