Grandma Schultz
Well, my other grandmother died last night (Monday 8/6), shortly before 6pm EST, in the cardiovascular ICU in a hospital in Florida. My dad and his sister were with her; I'm not sure about my grandfather.
Without trying to give too much backstory: My dad's parents had been living on their own in Florida, and by this year were both getting frailer by the minute, but my grandmother in particular was showing significant signs of Alzheimer's. My dad didn't know how bad it was until he visited there in April and found she was down to having "periods of lucidity" rather than the reverse. At the beginning of June, he moved both of them into the Masonic Home of Florida in St. Petersburg.
Apparently, around 3am last Tuesday morning, my grandmother "was found" lying on the floor next to their bed, with no pulse or heartbeat. They resuscitated (geez, I had to look up how to spell that) her, but she never regained consciousness again. My dad left Indiana on Thursday to drive down to Florida, and my aunt and uncle came out from Texas around the same time. Yesterday, Monday, they took her off the ventilator, and she was gone within about 10 minutes.
She wanted to be cremated and buried in her hometown of Pontiac, IL, so that's the plan. Dad has no idea what the schedule for that will be, though. No rush, really, with cremation.
It took a couple hours to hit me, but then, suddenly, it actually made me much sadder than losing my first grandmother.
For one thing: I'd seen her a lot less in the past several years than my mother's mother, since I've made it out to CA at least once a year (and even got to take Tiger Boy there last fall), but only got down to FL once since they moved there in, what, 2002.
For another: Secretly, I'd hoped for years that she would outlive my grandfather -- who has always been, and let's leave it at this, a challenging person at best -- and enjoy some peace without him at the end. Naturally, the way her mind was going, it wouldn't have done her any good even if she could have. But it's still sad.
Lastly, as I ended up explaining to TB last night, she's actually the one I take after in certain pervasive ways. Physically: Although I got my mother's height, I am built like the Johnson/Schultz women (my grandmother and my aunt) -- short-waisted, small-breasted, all hips and thighs. Artistically: Both she and my grandfather made things -- he built their house, the one my father grew up in; they had a ceramics studio in the basement, complete with kiln, and once we were old enough, my brother and I got to scrape our own greenware and paint and glaze. But she is the one I think of with the deft hands and the perfectionist eye. My dad and my aunt both inherited their strong artistic tendencies from her, and I think it's pretty clear that it came down to me as well.
(Of course, all this is without getting into the family dynamics that have existed within my memory, let alone before I was born... so many layers upon layers, and I know I never saw even a quarter of the way down. But that's not the part I want to remember right now, or unpeel.)
So the upshot is, it seems I miss her more now than I did before... even though, really, she'd been unavailable (not to say mostly gone) for a while. Which, of course, is exactly the trouble: I never went down there again, because it got to be hard enough for my dad himself to go there, and I didn't like to impose and create more logistical problems by showing up either with or without him.
I wish she could have seen me with my betrothed.
I wish I could have hugged her again before she left for good.
Without trying to give too much backstory: My dad's parents had been living on their own in Florida, and by this year were both getting frailer by the minute, but my grandmother in particular was showing significant signs of Alzheimer's. My dad didn't know how bad it was until he visited there in April and found she was down to having "periods of lucidity" rather than the reverse. At the beginning of June, he moved both of them into the Masonic Home of Florida in St. Petersburg.
Apparently, around 3am last Tuesday morning, my grandmother "was found" lying on the floor next to their bed, with no pulse or heartbeat. They resuscitated (geez, I had to look up how to spell that) her, but she never regained consciousness again. My dad left Indiana on Thursday to drive down to Florida, and my aunt and uncle came out from Texas around the same time. Yesterday, Monday, they took her off the ventilator, and she was gone within about 10 minutes.
She wanted to be cremated and buried in her hometown of Pontiac, IL, so that's the plan. Dad has no idea what the schedule for that will be, though. No rush, really, with cremation.
It took a couple hours to hit me, but then, suddenly, it actually made me much sadder than losing my first grandmother.
For one thing: I'd seen her a lot less in the past several years than my mother's mother, since I've made it out to CA at least once a year (and even got to take Tiger Boy there last fall), but only got down to FL once since they moved there in, what, 2002.
For another: Secretly, I'd hoped for years that she would outlive my grandfather -- who has always been, and let's leave it at this, a challenging person at best -- and enjoy some peace without him at the end. Naturally, the way her mind was going, it wouldn't have done her any good even if she could have. But it's still sad.
Lastly, as I ended up explaining to TB last night, she's actually the one I take after in certain pervasive ways. Physically: Although I got my mother's height, I am built like the Johnson/Schultz women (my grandmother and my aunt) -- short-waisted, small-breasted, all hips and thighs. Artistically: Both she and my grandfather made things -- he built their house, the one my father grew up in; they had a ceramics studio in the basement, complete with kiln, and once we were old enough, my brother and I got to scrape our own greenware and paint and glaze. But she is the one I think of with the deft hands and the perfectionist eye. My dad and my aunt both inherited their strong artistic tendencies from her, and I think it's pretty clear that it came down to me as well.
(Of course, all this is without getting into the family dynamics that have existed within my memory, let alone before I was born... so many layers upon layers, and I know I never saw even a quarter of the way down. But that's not the part I want to remember right now, or unpeel.)
So the upshot is, it seems I miss her more now than I did before... even though, really, she'd been unavailable (not to say mostly gone) for a while. Which, of course, is exactly the trouble: I never went down there again, because it got to be hard enough for my dad himself to go there, and I didn't like to impose and create more logistical problems by showing up either with or without him.
I wish she could have seen me with my betrothed.
I wish I could have hugged her again before she left for good.