Just before Thanksgiving my father called me to tell me that my grandmother, his mother, was not doing so well. Her name is Jean Bauer and she's 85 and a tiny, spunky woman who doesn't complain about ANYthing. It's a Bauer trait.
She fell and broke her arm badly and upon examination, the doctors found lesions under her arm and then all over her body...that - after much speculation and testing - turned out to be cancer. Like I said, she complains about NOTHING...so for the lesions to have grown the way they did...oh, i just feel sick. We got the news about 10 days ago that it was progressing so fast that it was time to come see her. My father and I weren't sure what that meant...whether she had just a few months, or few weeks or if this was our last time to see her alive. Intense. Seems we had JUST found out something was wrong...oh wait, we did.
My mother was too sick to make the trip and so it was myself, my father and my brother. Three Bauers in a rental car to West Palm Beach is not ideal....do not try that at home:). Just before we arrived my mother called me and told me not to repeat to my dad, but that she learned that "the Catholic priest had come the night before." I understand that to mean it was so bad that the priest was brought in for comfort and spiritual guidance and to make sure she had peace. Or something like that.
What that did to me...that phone call 30 minutes from arriving at her house...I can't explain. I began to sweat. My spirit was soo disturbed. My lips were shaking...my hands were shaking and I thought I'd never be able to hide the news. It meant she really was dying. I didn't want my dad to know because he was desperately trying to find something to be positive about upon arriving at his moms house. Turns out I didn't need to hide anything. We walked into her house...which she shares with my uncle tommy and his partner Jerry (who by the way take EXCELLENT care of her and have for the past 15 years). Greeting us was the caregiver/nurse who was hired to stay with her ever since the diagnosis. I put my purse down, swallowed hard and looked for her. No matter how sick I felt, nothing compared to seeing her. She was pale, skeleton-like and I could barely tell it was her. She has very specific cheekbones and when I saw her crooked smile, I could see that it was her. I have not seen her since my wedding 8 years ago...and just a few years ago...she was a knock out...a fabulously beautiful sweet little woman. And Friday night, she was dying of cancer.
I am told just 7 days prior, she was up eating cake for her 85th bday. I saw the pictures...the transformation in 7 days from his horrible cancer...devastating. She was still a beauty in those pictures. We all entered her room and it took a minute for her to realize that her grandchildren and her son were there. When she saw my father...she mustered all her strength and said "Jimmy! My baby! Jimmy!" And my fathers eyes grew wet with tears and he hugged her the best he could while she lie in bed. That broke my heart. She was terribly excited to see me and my brother and while it was hard to understand her, we could and did our best to "catch up."
Moments later, the morphine she was on helped her drift back off to sleep and we had some dinner with my uncles on their porch...a door open at all times to hear grandma. My father was crying. MY FATHER WAS CRYING. Not hard, not sobbing, but a painful, choking cry. Gut wrenching. He had his first beer in 15 years. Watching him deal with what he saw...his dying mother...was probably the worst thing I can remember seeing and feeling in a LONG time.
So then it was nighttime. I was alone with my uncles and grandma, as dad and jimmy went to a hotel. I drank a STRONG vodka drink..to calm down. I couldn't eat, I couldn't breathe...I was just so taken back. So then it was bedtime, and time to check grandma. It was also time for her morphine and as I saw my uncle measure it, my heart felt like it was going to explode because I KNEW I had something to say to my grandmother. What it was exactly, i don't know...but the leading to do something was there and I didn't want it to be. Before I knew it, I had asked for a few minutes alone with her...it was about midnight and there was a ton of moonlight in the room.
Grandma was alert, thinking it was morning, and she and I talked some. I told her how much I loved her...I felt like I used all my muscles to say it...I wanted her to know how much. In the four hours I was there, my head and heart were reminded of my grandmother, all the years of love and support she gave me and so many special memories came flooding back.
So I told her I loved her and she said something funny. I can't recall it exactly (maybe due to the vodka) but it was something about how special I was and "if" she made it to heaven, etc. Then I knew. I knew she was scared. I told her...and normally I might hesitate to make this so public, but it's my blog and I think if anyone has read any of it, this probably won't see surprising...that God loved her. That she could know for sure whether she'd see heaven. That SHE was the special one and that she did a great job as a mother and a grandmother. And she smiled her crooked smile. I'll never forget it. I asked her if she was scared, through very hot tears ( I was FURIOUS, FURIOUS that she was going through this pain), and she looked odd then...like she wasn't sure how to answer. I could also tell I was losing her. She was getting tired. I told her what the Bible says...which is just purely that God loves us. He made a way to get to him so that there is no question in moments like this. That way is Jesus and if she trusted in that truth, she had no worries. She would "make it". I remember speaking very steadily, very sure of what I was saying, yet inside I was shaking. This is not the first time I have felt God's strength when I was so weak. I prayed with her... then we were interrupted. Time for morphine. Time for grandma to slip away to sleep.
That is until about 1:30 a.m. I could hear grandma making noise. I was warned that she isn't sure what she's doing and tries to get out of bed. I jumped to my feet (as if my uncles hadn't been doing this for 2 weeks already) and went to her room. Indeed she was trying to get out. I asked her what she needed adn while she couldn't speak at that point, she nodded when I said "bathroom?". I was warned that she could fall, she could, if her source not strong enough, fall and break something else. She's been in a diaper and has a portable potty and that's what she has been forced to endure. She can't even use the portable potty herself. Did I mention she's the ultimate lady...always hose, heels and a purse...peeing in her bed or in a potty is NOT what she wants. She made that clear. I don't know what possessed me to do it, but I offered to take her to the bathroom. I knew that's what she wanted. I helped her out of the bed and as she shuffled with her arms around me, mine tight around her back ( I swear NOTHING would break my grip) I helped her. I got her back to the bed...and realized...I have to lift her totally up to get her on the mattress. It's 1:30 a.m. I have to pick her up, all 86 lbs. of her. I'm a strong girl, but not that strong. I couldn't leave her to get my uncles. I didn't want to alarm her by yelling for them. Again the calmness came. Complete calmness. I found myself picking her up, like a baby cradled in my arms and I simply lifted her into the bed. I realized I forgot to put her diaper on the bed first. That too was not hard. Her body simply lifted and I was able to get her snug and secure. Then it hit me. I didn't do that alone.
Saturday came and I spent the afternoon in her room. My brother had a few moments with her too, as she loves her "little jimmy" dearly. His eyes were red and bright for a good part of the day. There were so many people in the house...including relatives I haven't seen, one I had never met before and yet that prodding came AGAIN. Heart beating fast...sweat, teh whole thing. So I closed the door and prayed that God would tell me what he had for me to tell her...how strange to know something like that, right? I mean, what else could it be? So she was really alert...and I showed her the scrapbook I made for her...and I was delighted that she could see the pictures...or at least she said she could. It was like she had gotten BETTER overnight. A good day. So we talked and I asked her if she remembered talking with me the night before and she looked blank. She said "can you talk to me now honey?" I didn't know what to say...but she told me that she was scared and then I started to cry. I sobbed and told her how sorry I was taht she was so sick. I told her how much I loved her, repeated what I said to her the night before and she said "you believe like I do, honey. I know how you must feel." Selfless grandma - she was trying to make ME feel better and she is the one dying. Shortly after, she fell asleep.
I guess the prodding to talk to her about heaven and God and well, the "big stuff" comes from the fact that I do truly believe in God. The past few years have been really tough in that capacity, lots of questions...but I DO believe. I search for answers, I search for Him constantly. And, regardless of what you believe, if you believe there's a path, a way, and that it is the TRUTH wouldn't you share it with a dying person?
I received an envelope from her that day..via my uncles. It was some of her jewelry that she saved for me. I will wear it with pride. I slept in her bedroom the night before we left and felt so comfortable looking at her figurines, her things...things I used to look at as a small child...and almost all of her pictures had me and my brother in them...and then I felt crushed...like all the air had been sucked out of me...b/c I had not visited her often enough, had not written her enough...and actually, as sick as it makes me feel even now, i have two piles of pictures that i saved for her...and never sent. Shame on me. She never forgot me..ever. My god that is a horrible feeling.
Saying goodbye to her was the single worst thing. We all knew, including her, that was our last moments with her alive. My father knew it the most. He was very figity that morning and nervous. Dad came in to say goodbye and again, that terribly painful choking cry came out and i felt like someone stuck a needle in my heart...my body HURT. I couldn't look away...he was hovered over her (and at that point I noticed he signed her cast "Jim Loves Mom") trying to tell her that he loved her, he had to go and that she should get some sleep and dream great dreams and he'd see her soon. MY GOD...WHY...WHY does it have to be so damn hard? Then it was my turn and by this time her eyes were closed. I thikn she was doing it to make it easier. I thanked her for my jewelry, she smiled, eyes closed. I told her I loved her so much and while her mouth barely opened, I could hear her, from way deep inside, tell me she loved me too.
Apparently since we left on Sunday, she has been sad, feeling as though everyone has left her and what kills me, what is making me cry right now, is that she is so painfully aware of her impending death...and she's sad...she's trying to say goodbye in her moments of clarity...and is heartbrokern herself!
I saw her exrays...her body is spotted like a dalmation...totally filled with cancer...her bladder and her brain, her collar bones, ribs, etc...everything...cancer everywhere. Damn it. she's 85 and has had a long life...but the pain, the waiting, the detoriorating...the body is going.
...and watching her cancer filled body lie in that bed...and yet hear her ask about all of US, if we had eaten, if we were sleeping, if we "wanted ice cream on the patio" when she was alert enough, was just, well, something else - for lack of a better word.
When you see a sick body asleep..I don't know...for me this hyper awareness of spirit and soul was there. Watching a chest filled with cancer rise and up and down, struggle to breathe at times...but then see moments of HER...well, it was surreal.
So now I am waiting for the phone call that says she has passed. Most believe it'll happen before christmas, which breaks my heart. Until then, she'll be in that room, in that bed and I just hate it. HATE IT HATE IT HATE IT. I can't imagine how my dad must feel.
I feel like I have been run over by a truck and I am not the one who's sick...i can't seem to talk about it w/out either feeling completely sick or crying. I think it's the waiting...of knowing shes waiting too...maybe a bit unsure...maybe a bit lonely...and it's really tearing me up.
I wrote it out here in hopes that I will better deal, but she is constantly on my mind...the pictures of our family all over the her walls...the memories...the fact that a life is ending...it's just really...hard.
