#personal talks

So, she spent those 6 months grateful to have some lasting quality bonding time with her ill grandmother, the one who raised her better than her parents, before she passed on.

It stuck with me and I didn't know why. Perhaps, because it sounded beautiful. I could relate. I dearly love my grandma too. I often joke that my grandma and me are soulmates how we just understand each other easily. Then she had a heart attack, a series of mini heart attacks actually, and she had heart surgery on the day of a final I didn't care to study for because all I thought about was "my grandma could be dead".

I didn't pass my final. I failed the class. I didn't care. My grandma survived the surgery though so I felt my priorities we ordered correctly. The whole time I thought about my English teacher's words about school being forever but your loved ones, not so much.

It was a difficult time for my family. Everyone was working and no one knew who could take care of my grandma's recovery process. We had an option of doing at-home care or sending her to a rehab facility. This was during covid quarantine and the rehab wouldn't allow us to visitation at all and we knew if we sent my grandma there she'd die missing us as strangers looked after her. They don't know her like we do. Like I do. She speaks very soft that it's hard for people to hear her and she's still confused and loopy and a bit mean from the surgery drugs. Do they have the patience and unconditional love to watch her with care like us?

I dropped out of school just like my teacher. Well, I took a break, and told my family that since I'm not working then let me be the certified caretaker of grandma. My cousins, my sister, my mother, my uncles and aunt, my grandma's many still living siblings were all relieved. I did my training and officially became a proxy for my grandma, an advocate for her health when everyone else had to work.

I took her to doctors appointments, extra surgeries, fed her, clothed her, did her hair, dressed her wounds if she had any, drove her to wherever she wanted to go, kept her company, and I never felt more alive than being there for my grandma in her time of need. I felt purpose.

Grandma said to me once. "Just like how I used to take care of you as a baby, you're taking care of me now." I said to her. "Cycle of life, I guess."

Grandma said to me once. "You're really gonna take care of me?" I said to her. "Of course. You're my grandma. I love you."

When my grandma wanted flowers, I bought them for her, and she was so happy to come back from dialysis that she didn't even want to go in the house. Usually she's tired, but seeing those flowers rejuvenated her. Me and my family had to instantly go and plant them in her garden she was so excited like a little kid. She had onset dementia. She always apologized for whatever wrong she did to me or anyone else cuz she couldn't remember being mean sometimes. I forgave her. She literally wasn't in her right mind.

On the anniversary of her surgery, I bought her food from her favorite restaurant, and said "happy 2nd birthday because you almost died but you didn't." She called everyone she knew to brag about her royal treatment lol.

She said she missed the South. Her childhood home. Our family planned a road trip and we took her home (with permission from doctors) to the house she grew up in, the river she used to fish in, the family graveyard. We took her to her Homecoming as family from all generations came by to honor, apparently, the kindest woman they knew. They showered her with money and gifts for all the good she did them in her lifetime. I didn't know other people loved my grandma just like me. It was beautiful.

I should've known when grandma started talking more about death and moving on. I should've known when she started talking about not wanting to hold us back because we were taking care of her. I should've known as I slept at Auntie's house when I dreamt of my favorite cousin, who died a few years back from cancer, was there at our grandma's Homecoming somehow like he was going to guide her to the light or something.

The day after we returned from our trip, my grandma had a seizure. She was on life support. She had told us one time that "everything I ever wanted God had given me." She died with no regrets and knowing she was loved dearly as we pulled the plug and heard her last breath. One of my oldest cousins didn't let the nurses touch grandma, my cousin wanted to clean up my grandma's dead body herself. My mom, uncles, and auntie were officially orphans. Too many people came to the funeral and wake, we barely had room to sit everybody. My grandma touched a lot of hearts just being herself. These people cried so hard as if my grandma had birthed them, was their blood related family. She was remembered for doing whatever she wanted to do (1st woman to get her driver's license and bank account and could make her own clothes etc)