Quiet

These last few weeks I’ve really been in my head and when I get in my head, as all introverts know, it can be hard to get out. And that usually translates into me not writing here. In my head, busy with life…I’m just quiet these days.

Then, a week and a half ago my mom called and told me my grandmother had contracted, once again, a bacterial infection she’d had a few years ago. This time around they weren’t sure if she would be able to beat it, especially in her weakened health. I wasn’t able to get up to the nursing home to see her until last Saturday and by that time she’d started going downhill fast. At this point she was still talking somewhat, though in a croaky voice, and was not moving a whole lot. Most everyone had been by to see her at this point and I was glad that I’d caught her before she’d slipped somewhere in which she couldn’t communicate. That place of non-communication came fast, by that evening when we saw her again after dinner, and then onto the next day.

On Sunday I stayed with my mom as we sat with my grandmother for about four hours in the morning before I had to leave DFW to come back home so Chris could drive to a field job so my time was limited. I didn’t want to leave. I knew that when I left that was going to be it. She wasn’t awake-awake, but I know she was there because she responded when I asked my mom when the last time she’d had water had been. And she responded when the hospice nurse came in to give to check on her and when the nursing home nurse gave her morphine. Her breathing at this point was becoming labored, long pauses between where my mom and I would look at each other and wonder if this was it…no, apparently it gets worse, as I learned from my mom on Tuesday when she passed.

Last year when Grandad passed, I knew the era of my having grandparents around was coming to an end. I have to admit, I’m lucky. I got to have two of mine for 32/33 years and many others don’t get them that long. It always seemed as if they would always been there, even my grandmother who’d had ill health for the last several years and kept on truckin’ along anyway. The last time I really saw her was on Father’s Day when was up there and even then she was still hoping and wishing she could get out of the nursing home and into an assisted living place.

My mom is having a difficult time, she was her mother. There are so many ‘Nanny-isms’, things we see and associated with her. My mom said something yesterday and I told her she had to write it down, whatever the saying was, so she could remember later on.

Anyway, I’ll be sitting with my Nanny’s memories for awhile until I can write more about all of those great things I did and enjoyed with her when I was growing up. I’d forgotten she’d played the piano once upon a time until the preacher at her service mentioned she’d played—and then the memory of the piano in her living room came into focus and I could see how everything used to look.

So, my head is a ball of yarn that a cat has tangled up, something I need to slowly un-knot.

In the meantime I’m going to attempt to start writing here again, though the only things exciting are keeping up with the summer garden and the fact our beehive has split!