End of a Generation

[Shivna]

 Don't read this post unless you have a box of tissues, and feel the need for a good cry.

 My Great Aunt is dying. Slowly and comfortably, but still dying. She has no real health problems that I am aware of, besides the fact that she is wheelchair-bound. That doesn't bother her, even when she could still walk, she didn't want to because she was scared of falling again.

   My Great Aunt is my Grandmothers older (by one year) sister. My grandmother passed away almost 3 years ago. My grandfather passed away about 3 years before that. So there is the time line.

  I am not terribly close to my Great Aunt, as long as I can remember her mind has not been all there, but after she fell and hurt herself (and ended up in a more local nursing home) she has been more out of it. . Nobody in the family can visit her much any more, she lives more than an hour away from everybody. I think she is happy in the nursing home. She doesn't really know where she is, she thinks she is still in her own home, in an apartment, in her old community about 5 hours north on the bay. When we go visit her, she always tells us she just came back from shopping, or lunch, or the theatre with her friends. So she is not lonely. I'm not sure if she is talking about her old friends or the ones she lives with now.

  My Grandfather passed away the summer I was 18. I stayed with my grandmother while he was in the hospital. His death was very unexpected. He fell and broke his hip, and when he went into a nursing home  for a short stay of therepy, he left. He said he would never live in a nursing home. After he died, it seemed like he was back at home, you could still feel him, it felt as though he would walk in at any second, or if you went out on the porch, you would find him there with a glass of wine watching the sunset. We could all feel him there. We all knew he was watching over my grandmother. Knowing he was gone didn't change anything. We could feel him there almost physically. My grandfather was an Irish farmer. He farmed all his life. He fought in WWII, he shook hands with the Pope. He was a family man. He was who I looked for when I married my husband. Everyone said I found him. I wish they could have met.

  My grandmother was the heart of my family. Our rock and our warm shoulder. She also died very unexpectedly, but she missed my grandfather and her parents. She died of bone cancer 11 days before I got married. We didn't find out about the cancer until the day she died. Her doctor had never caught it, so we all thought she had severe Fibromyalgia. We all thought there was time left. I was very close to my grandmother, we had a lot in common. We were planning a trip to Ireland together that August. She passed away in May. She was so strong for so long, we thought she would always be there. I wanted her to be there for my children. She loved her grand kids, she would have been head over heel for her great grands. I feel that a lot. The fact that she will miss them I mean. Every year I see things that she would have liked for Christmas, and then I remember she isn't there to get them. Or I think of things that she liked and I realize that I didn't do them enough for her. That I could have done more for her. That I realize I took her very presence for granted. When you went to visit her, she was always there with a smile and a hug. When you did the smallest things for her, like empty and refill the dishwasher, she would say "Bless your heart". I took that for granted too. I always wanted to record her stories of when she was younger and how she lived through the depression, but there was always tomorrow to do that. I never wanted to think of her as not being there, so I always put it off.  There is no recording of her voice that I know of except the recording on the house answering mashine. I know everyone in the family still calls there to listen to her talk. After I got married my husband and I lived in her house and since it was so soon after her death, family would call at all hours of the day and night just to her her speak again. At night it would really set me off since you could hear the recording on both sides. It was too painful for me to hear it, so I would race through a dark house to turn it off on our side before it got to the recording. I would cry anyway. After my grandmother died, she wasn't at the house anymore, her presence was gone. So was my grandfather. He had been waiting for her. The house had never felt so empty, even when it was full of people. It still feels empty, even though there is always someone there.

  As you can tell, I feel the loss of my grandmother the most, and I am not yet 'recovered' or 'over it' yet. That is partly why I feel the impending loss of my great aunt so much. We are not close at all, but she is the last link I have to that generation. If you have ever heard "Grandpa" by the Judds, you will understand. I can't hear that song without crying, and yet it is one of my favorites.

  I cried all while I wrote this, but afterwards I felt better. I have never shared all of this with anyone. After reading it, I bet you can understand why. So now I have a small weight lifted off my sholders. I hope you took something from this.... record stories, record voices. Do small things for people you think they will like. And don't let time go by wasted. Time is very short, until you mourn. Love them while you have them, and let them know it.

[MomaNana2008]

Jan. 31, 2009 at 4:36 AM

This is a great journal-I am going to email it to My Friends, so get ready for some comments!  I know how difficult it must be for You sometimes when You think about if I had only...If you know any of their Friends that are still alive-go to them now and talk to them so you can get some insight into what they were. That will make you feel better about it and then,  just take it to prayer and let it go. Tape that answer message on something more durable and remove it from Your phone when every one is ready so you can keep it and give copies to your family.  Thanks for this very touching journal written with alot of love!....

[humbleservant]

Jan. 31, 2009 at 8:55 AM

Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I know it was painful yet I am sure you reached out to many. We need to appreciate and love those while we have them becuase we never know when they are going to be taken back home to the Lord. Thank you again it was beautiful the way you shared with us.