end of life
I’m on vacation this week. This past Friday, I had to work quite late. About 8:30 in the evening, my dad called me while I was still at work to tell me he and mom were headed east to see his mom. My grandmother, his mom, is in a nursing home, and has been for a couple of years.
Someone called him and said she’d taken a turn for the worse and was put into hospice care, as she was not expected to last more than a couple of days. I later found out that she’d gone into a coma, which she had come out of by the time they arrived. They still believe she will not last much longer, although she’ll be around more than the couple days she was originally given.
It got me to thinking though. I haven’t seen her in close to 20 years, and yet, when she is gone, there will be a profound sense of loss. She is my last remaining grandparent, my final link to a past I know little about. My dad’s dad, my grandfather, has been gone for some time. The men in our family rarely make it past their 60’s, if they get there. My dad’s dad died in his 60’s, and my dad’s granfather on his dad’s side died when he was a youg boy - I think I heard he was in his 50’s. I once tried to trace my family tree, but couldn’t get back very far. My great grandfather had a family bible with a list of births, deaths and marriages in it that covers my dad’s mother’s side of the family, going back into the mid 1800’s. Apparently, my ancestors have lived in America quite some time, on both sides of the family. My mother’s sisters had some history they could send, again going back to the mid-1800’s, but no locations, unfortunately. Maybe someday I’ll find the ‘root’ of my family tree. I know there is English blood in the family, my surname is English, and there’s lots of Scottish on both sides of the family, and a bit of Irish as well. But there’s no one left who remembers the patriarchal lineage any longer, not even grandmother.
I am sad for my dad, for while I have not lost a parent yet, I have lost someone some time ago. Here’s to you grandma. Rest easy.