See You Later, Grandma!

The first entire blog post I wrote tonight got deleted by the Blog-Eating Ghost that lives in my house...how annoying.

People deal with grief in different ways.  Some freak out, cry, drink, laugh, sing, cry, drink some more.  Lucky for me I do all of the above.  Hooooorayyyyy!

Tonight my Grandma died.  She went away.  I got to her side at about 5:15pm tonight and she took her last breath shortly after 6pm.  I bent over her, crying and sniveling, and told her that I loved her, kissed her on the forehead, dripped some tears and snot onto her (sorry gma!!) and then whipped it away before anyone saw.  I was her first grandchild and she was there when I was born so it was only fitting that I was there when she left us.  I watched this beautiful woman who is partially responsible for me being here take her final moments with family and was the most amazing experience of my life thus far.  Simply amazing.

G-ma died of congestive heart failure (CHF) which means that her lungs were filling up with fluid, her heart wasn't strong enough to pump it out and essentially she will drown.  And all damned weekend I could NOT bring myself to see her, I didn't want to remember her that way, in that bed, swollen and puffy like that.  Every time I thought about it I would get severe anxiety and almost got sick about it.  I said that if she was still kickin on Monday that I would go there after work and see her.  I talked to Mom this morning, G-ma was still gurgling away....hopefully she would hang on until I got off work.

I got there at about 5:15pm....Mom and her two brothers and my aunt were talking about taking Grandpa home so he could feed the dog and take his old-man pills...and suddenly...it happened.  I won't go into details but.....G-Ma took her last few breaths with three of her five kids and her hubs and one stray daughter in law and one stray grand-daughter in tow...it was amazing, awesome, scary, sad, but most of all...relief.  She wasn't suffering anymore.  That's all we have always wanted.

On G-ma's wall at the nursing home there was a white-board with "Today/Tonight We Wish For:"...and just just before I got there my Uncle Roger wrote:  "The Lord to come tonight"....

.....and He did.

RIP Gramma...Me, Kass, Jase, Dylan and Jack Love You For Always....