A death in the family
My Grandma Agnes, Catherine's mom, died this morning a few minutes after six. She had at least four different types of infection in her body for the past week, and two of those started about a month to six weeks ago. In the end, it's a good thing that Agnes has died; she wasn't living a particularly enjoyable life for the past couple of weeks anyway. Her body was in a bunch of pain; on top of the infections she was fighting, two days ago we noticed she had a huge cavity in one of her rear molars she wasn't able to tell us about. During the last week or her life she really wasn't able to talk beyond answering yes or no questions, and we didn't understand her gestures toward her mouth as signals that she had severe decay in one of her molars.
I'm having many mixed feelings right now.
I'm a little upset that my mom and Catherine didn't call me to tell me Agnes had died; I did write a note when I left this morning asking them to give me a call if anything came up. On the other hand, I understand that neither of them slept very much last night because they were spending the last few hours of Agnes' life at the nursing home. I would have been there too, although I wasn't invited. I had previous plans to go to the Science Museum today with Laura and Michelle, and I was glad to be able to still go to the museum with them. If I'd stayed up half the night with the moms and Agnes, I would have had a difficult time going to the museum today with friends.
I'm sad that Grandma Agnes has died; back when her life was wonderful, fun, and relaxing for her, it was a blast to talk with her and go out for lunch. She told great stories and spending time with her was really fun. In high school she liked it when I'd drive her all over St. Paul in her big Buick. I'll have to admit that it was actually fun driving her "grandma car" of a Buick with the windows down and our hair blowing all over the place. I felt indestructible in that thing, and Agnes did too.
It's a crazy emotional and physical mess of a place at home right now. For the past month or so, Catherine hasn't really helped out with any of the chores at home, and this week has been the worst. Clearly things will get better after Agnes' funeral, both in terms of how sad and exhausted everyone is and with the way our house looks. It doesn't actually even look that bad; I just haven't had the energy tonight to do the dishes and they're driving me nuts.
Tomorrow will be better after I talk to my mom about all of this.
I'm having many mixed feelings right now.
I'm a little upset that my mom and Catherine didn't call me to tell me Agnes had died; I did write a note when I left this morning asking them to give me a call if anything came up. On the other hand, I understand that neither of them slept very much last night because they were spending the last few hours of Agnes' life at the nursing home. I would have been there too, although I wasn't invited. I had previous plans to go to the Science Museum today with Laura and Michelle, and I was glad to be able to still go to the museum with them. If I'd stayed up half the night with the moms and Agnes, I would have had a difficult time going to the museum today with friends.
I'm sad that Grandma Agnes has died; back when her life was wonderful, fun, and relaxing for her, it was a blast to talk with her and go out for lunch. She told great stories and spending time with her was really fun. In high school she liked it when I'd drive her all over St. Paul in her big Buick. I'll have to admit that it was actually fun driving her "grandma car" of a Buick with the windows down and our hair blowing all over the place. I felt indestructible in that thing, and Agnes did too.
It's a crazy emotional and physical mess of a place at home right now. For the past month or so, Catherine hasn't really helped out with any of the chores at home, and this week has been the worst. Clearly things will get better after Agnes' funeral, both in terms of how sad and exhausted everyone is and with the way our house looks. It doesn't actually even look that bad; I just haven't had the energy tonight to do the dishes and they're driving me nuts.
Tomorrow will be better after I talk to my mom about all of this.