This summer-unforgettable, traumatic, no words to describe. The summer started easy enough. A short three week stint at the local college, getting paid to go to school and learning a little bit more about science. Lots of fun.Then, the last week of school my grandmother's sister became really sick. They said she had a heart attack in church. She spent the week in the hospital. A few days in ICU. Then she was stable enough and doing well enough to go in a regular room. I brought my grandmother up to see her every night. Feeling tired but devastated, wanting to make sure my grandmother had an opportunity to be with her. On the Wednesday (I think), my cousin called and said my aunt wanted to hear my uncle play his guitar, could he please go to her hospital room that evening and play. He did. I couldn't stay in the room. I thought it was too difficult. Knowing what I thought she knew was near. It was just too difficult.
As we finished school that Friday, I was so excited. Finally, the summer was just beginning. In the meantime, my grandfather's health had been getting worse. He was having trouble walking. Falling sometimes. We had called home health so that he could be offered services at home. The doctors had said he had arthiritis and it was causing him a lot of pain. My mother-in-law was also not doing well. She couldn't walk around anymore, needed help going to the restroom, and wasn't going to dialysis like she needed. She had come and spent a weekend with us at the beginning of the summer. Her and I woke up early in the morning and talked, just us, alone. I made coffee for her and toast bread. Gave her medicine (she took out the ones she didn't like). She told me she loved me and she knew I loved her family. It felt good and scary at the same time. Ever since I began to date her son, she had always seemed to like me. Then after our trip to Vietnam, there were things only her and I could talk about. Like we had a secret no one else understood. Seeing her unhealthy was hard, it was really overwhelming to realize she couldn't do all of the things for herself that she could before and how incompetent we were in helping her.
On that Friday afternoon, someone called and said she had threw up and passed out. I went to the trailer, then to the hospital, waiting with my brother-in-law. The doctor called us, said she had a stroke and there was bleeding in her brain. He said call the family. I think I refused to believe him at that point. It couldn't happen yet, not now. That evening they transferred her to Thibodaux, did surgery to relieve the blood in her brain, and then she was stable. The doctor seemed encouraged. No, she may not come home like she was but she could get better. It wasn't her time yet. We went home that morning about 2am. At about 6am, my aunt passed away.
On Monday, they buried my aunt. On Monday, I helped my grandfather walk to the restroom-he fell. I put him in the bed-he slept alot. The doctor's office called and said an x-ray of his back showed he had only arthiritis. I felt devastated. How could that be. He couldn't walk anymore. He was talking in another language, his words didn't make any sense. And this was arthiritis? I couldn't believe it. I told him I loved him that day and waited to hear the words come back. He said he loved me too.
I had also spent the days going to see my mother-in-law, in the morning, in the evening. Sitting there, talking to her, holding her hand, thanking God for healing her so we could take her home and take care of her. I know God is a miracle worker and I believed he would work a miracle on her. As the week went on, she began opening her eyes, and squeezing our hands. Every movement felt like a mountain, so encouraging. One day she played with a little cup my husband put by her hand, she kept trying to grab it with her fingers. We thought that told us she knew what was going on. It wasn't just reflexes. After about a week though, she quit responding. Something changed. My granfather was now paralyzed, waist down at this point. His legs wouldn't work at all. I was spending the days trying to help take care of him.
One week after the stroke, we brought my grandfather to the hospital, he said his chest and his head hurt. My mom called and said he had a mass on his left lung and a brain tumor. Later that day, they did a scan and discovered there was also spots all over his right lung, his colon, his liver, and his tail bone and hip bones had totally detoriated-gone, mush. That explains why he couldn't walk. I guess it took over the arthiritis!
By Wednesday, he couldn't eat anymore, he couldn't swallow. We were begging for pain medicine, not wanting him to hurt at all. He went to sleep and for the next week, every now and then he would wake up. Sometimes he would try and talk to us, sometimes he would just make funny faces, letting us know he knew who we were. On Saturday, they took my mother-in-law off of the machines and put her in her own room. We went to see her that night. I only stayed a minute. It was harder than I had thought it would be. I was still waiting for her to wake up and talk to me. She passed away about 2:30 that morning. We buried her on Wednesday. Some days I still think she is there, at the trailer, and I miss her so much. Just to hear her talk. Anything.
I can't imagine life without her, even now. It has been one month.
On Thursday morning, the day after burying my mother-in-law, my grandfather passed. I told him that evening before that she had gone to heaven, it was okay now. I loved him. For him to get some rest. The next morning, about 5:30am, he left too. I knew he had been sick and I had prayed for God to take him. I knew he was not living, and was in such pain. But now-there is this unbelievable void, an emptiness that can not be filled. A lost feeling. How do you function when you lose two people that was so significant in your life.
My grandfather, my hero, my world. He knew everything, could do anything, and loved me and my children so much. He never hurt us, not once. Not with words, or actions. Undying love. I keep trying to figure how to live my life without that.
My mother-in-law. I spent endless hours listening to her tell me stories. About Vietnam, my husband, his father, everything. How muched she loved the children. Unconditional love. Just to hear her talk, call my name-like she did, no one else could say it like her. How lost.
Two rocks, one summer, unconditional love.
