12/19/2004 06:58:34 AM|||Amy|||After I put Monkey to bed last night, she told me that Grandma had been here at the house on Friday. And then Monkey told me that she was going to kick God's butt, and that he has to stay away from Grandma. I've been worried about how the kids will handle her death, and now I'm worried that I'm not telling Monkey the right things.

Some say that when you die, your whole life flashes before your eyes. What I haven't heard, is how when someone you love dies - your whole life with them flashes before your eyes.

When my mother gave birth to me, she had her labor induced two weeks early because she lived too far from the hospital for my father's mother to drive her if labor happened while he wasn't home. My dad, I think, was finished with the Airforce and Vietnam by the time I was conceived. My mother says that she realized she was pregnant because when she was cleaning their base housing, the smell of the chemicals continually made her sick. My dad had had a vasectomy very recently, and apparently the sperm/egg had just made it to home plate before the Great Snip Snip. I look just like my father, by the way.

After the Airforce, they moved up to Pennsylvania where my father tried to find a job and my mother suffered the indignities of raising two small children and gestating a third in her in-laws home. I think that as soon as I was old enough to travel, my father's mother had unleashed her last well meant, but nerve-wracking, attempt to help my mother and the five of us moved to Texas. A few years later, my paternal grandmother came to live with us and I think my mother is still too exhausted from that experience to tell those stories.

In any case, as I was in the shower this morning, I thought about the things my mother and I did together when I was a small child. We used to watch All in the Family re-runs, eat pickle chips and play Scrabble. I wonder now why we played Scrabble. I'm pretty sure it's a game she enjoys, but how much fun could it be to play Scrabble with someone who only knows simple words? Did she like it because there wasn't much of a challenge, or was she trying to help expand my literacy?

I remember how she used to brush my hair. My hair wasn't cut until I was around ten. The pain could be amazing when she tried to get through the tangles. I really don't know why she just didn't cut it off. I'm going through the same thing with Monkey, and every time I promise her and myself that I'm getting her a little boy's haircut. But my mother perservered, and I had a huge, thick mane of hair until I was old enough to brush it myself - and that's when I was sheared.

Losing one's mother is very, very hard.
|||110346221006217365|||More Stories About Grandma12/19/2004 02:27:08 PM|||Judy The Great|||Yes Amy dear, this part is the hardest.

The weekend before my mother went into the hospital for the last time and shortly there after slipped into a coma, I sat on the bed with her and she told me stories of when I was a little girl. Stories she had never told me before. My grandmother was there, she had a sort of a desperate air about her, I think everyone - especially mom knew her time was coming to an end. I can't remember the stories she told that day but I do remember her holding my hand and telling me she loved me as she drifted off to sleep. I somehow knew that would be our last weekend together.

She stayed in a coma in the hospital for nearly a month before she passed - luckily I have been able to push aside those memories in the past 8 years and remember that weekend as her last instead of the hospital room.

Don't worry about Monkey, she's so young, she really doesn't understand a lot. Bear is nearly 7 and he has spent most of his life with grandma. He's a sweet inteligent boy, I think it will be hardest on him.

Take care of yourself Amy. Call me if you need anything, if I'm able I will help.

Hugs to you and your family.

Judy