Because Stacy said...

I was IM'ing with Stacy, just sort of a 'catching up on the day' messaging and we were talking about where our families were at the time. Her people were at church. My son was at the park, and my husband went to visit one of his grandma's. She is in the hospital with pneumonia. Her name is 'Elsa' but we all call her Grandma Doug. She's 85, and I fear not long for this world. I think she's o.k. with that. Here is a little history.

Elsa married a man named Doug. When the kids were little, my MIL would say they were going to Grandma and Doug's house, and in a short while, she became Grandma Doug! Doug was always Grandpa Doug!

When I was first dating Greg, it was soon after Grandpa had had a stroke. Initially he was in nursing homes until the cost became too much to bear and they moved him home and hired a full-time, in-home care-taker. That went on for 2 years or so until grandpa finally died. After he passed, Grandma lived alone, tended to her garden, visited with her friends in town, got her hair done once a week, and went on an occasional vacation with my MIL and her sister (g'ma has two daughters). For a time, it was her daily ritual to go to McDonald's, have coffee, and visit with her cronies! She and grandpa lived in this little town for quite a while, and grandpa had owned the local hardware/lumber store so they knew a lot of people. Over time, grandma's friends began to either move away or die. In 1993 someone broke into the house while grandma was asleep, raped her, left her tied up in a closet with a pillowcase over her head, stole money from her house, and drove off with her car. Grandma was forever changed.

In 1994 we had an opportunity to move back to Cali from Massachusetts. I knew that even if we had been in Cali, we couldn't have prevented the robbery and rape of grandma, and with Greg's other set of granparents getting older (my grandma died in Feb 1994), me feeling as if I'd like to have a baby, and just plain ol' wanting to be "home" we packed up and headed cross-country with our dog and cat in the car! All of our other stuff went on the moving van, and we met up with it in Woodland at Grandma's house! While we were grateful for a place to live until we re-established ourselves in Cali, I was b.u.g.g.y. to move into our own place after three months! Love the lady dearly, but women are hard to live with!

Fast-forward to present day. Grandma moved closer to the IL's so she could settle in and be closer to MIL and auntie as she grew older and less able to care for herself/stuff. Sadly, that time has come. G-ma is in the local hospital (she now has a full-time care-giver), and MIL says she spoke with her doctor who said that if she doesn't show signs of improvement (like does she have pneumonia because she is aspirating her food?) they'll send her home, and that it wouldn't be unreasonable to move in the direction of Hospice.

When I visited her a couple weeks ago, she talked out-loud to God (something she doesn't ordinarily do) asking for forgiveness, apologizing for things she said/done, and praying for family members. I knew then that her days were numbered. Of the two grandma's, it's Grandma Doug that Greg and I are closer too. Nothing bad against the other Grandma, but she's more uptight and prudish, for lack of a better description!

Death is inevitable. Anyone that has ever been in a care-taker, at some degree, for a loved one that is on their way out can tell you that in your head you know it's going to happen, you make the best choices that you can, and you move along. It's when your heart gets involved that the stuff that makes perfectly good sense one minute makes no sense at all the next minute!

I need to make a strong effort to go see her, if not tomorrow, before the end of the weekend. I don't want to have any regrets.