There's a lot I could write about today. Somewhere inside me there is a whole post waiting to be written about this year's wrestling adventures. And there's one about Lucy's first haircut, complete with pictures, sitting right there in my brain.
But there's only one thing I want to write about today. I'm gonna warn you now: I am writing this for me and it could be a mess. If you don't want to ruin your day, Stop Reading Now. If you could use a good cry, then by all means...
My grandpa was moved to hospice yesterday. To a Hospice House, actually. A lovely, little place. It is cozy and cheerful without being obscene. The kindness there comes in many forms from handmade quilts to an indoor aviary to a sweet old lady that takes frightened boys to find ice cream. There's only one problem with this place. You go there to die.
I promise I am not trying to be brash or callous. I am simply trying to get my heart to understand the reality of our situation. It does not seem real. It's not sinking in.
It's been a shock to my system, this switch from curative care to hospice. Last week, when someone said "Grandpa ate well and was talking with us," there was hope in the voice. Hope that by eating he would get stronger and get better and maybe just get to come home. This week, those words mean something so different. You can't help but fear that those few, hard-wrought words Grandpa just said to you, might just be the last you ever hear of his voice. I wrote down what he said to me, as soon as I left his room- because my grief makes me forgetful and I didn't want to forget his words to me.
Hospice is such a lovely, strange place. It's kind of like a long goodbye. I found myself so confused as I sat with my grandpa. Do I just talk about the weather? Do I desperately tell him everything I have in my heart for him, in case the next time I come he is no longer able to understand my words? Will he care to hear about my child's wrestling record while thoughts of his own death are in a constant swirl in his mind? I don't know. Do you ignore the elephant in the room or embrace it? I didn't know. So I just gushed all of this as tears streamed incessant down my face.
It is a new thing, feeling the weight of heavy grief while trying to parent children who are both old enough and too young to have their own grief. (Side thought: Is it even okay to say we are grieving, even though my grandpa still lives? Is their such a thing as Grieving Etiquette, which specifies a reverent timeline for when you can respectfully start feeling the sadness? I don't know. I don't.)
Back to the kids...Isaac and Lucy are alternately delightful and infuriating distractions. Their fits can take an already tense mom to the edge. But they also bring refreshing humor to tense moments.
Harrison has a fairly good understanding of what is happening. However, I think he has some questions about Grieving Etiquette, too, because after our visit to grandpa he had a question. We had stopped at a drive-thru for lunch. The cashier was extra friendly and we joked with him for a minute. Harrison then asked, quite seriously, "Are you supposed to be laughing while Big Grandpa is in the place where you die?" Children are candid. And while you might think their frankness would be hurtful, it's actually sobering in a good way. His question reminded us that some of our kids are old enough to have these types of wonderings. Have you tried to explain the complexities of emotions to a six year old? It's not easy and we were not graceful, but I think he now understands that you can be both happy and sad at the same time, and that IT IS OKAY to be both.
Anlynn seems to absorb everyone else's pain, storing it up until she can't contain it any longer. She may look unmoved, but she is keenly aware of her pain and others'. She hasn't cried yet. At least not explicitly in sadness to Grandpa's illness. She had a huge meltdown last night because she couldn't find the tank top she wanted to wear to dance. It had nothing to do with a tank top. We let her stay home from dance and she rested. Later that night we chatted. After a short lull she blurted out, "Well, I'm pretty sad about Grandpa." No tears. Matter of fact. She went on to mention that we won't be buying him a Christmas present. Again, with the frankness. Am I ready to start picturing Christmases without Grandpa? Not really. But my child is connecting the dots and trying to make sense of it all. So I pull it together and help her the best I can.
Amana. Sweet Amana. Unfortunately, (fortunately?) she is so much like her mama. She is a bucket of tears. She cries if she sees me crying. She cries if a song reminds her of Big Grandpa. She cries as she wonders about his heart and his eternity. She cries because she thinks about how lonely Big Grandma is and will be. She cries because she knows her grandpa will miss his dad. It's a lot of crying. She and I just sit and cry and share sad smiles to encourage each other. She asks thoughtful questions, prays profound prayers, and weeps with those who weep. There's a lot of wisdom hidden away in her 10 year old heart.
My Lige. While Christ is my true rock and anchor in all this, Lige is the tangible representation of Christ holding me steady. The pictures I see in my mind of us right now is this: Lige is like a flagpole firmly planted in the Rock of Jesus Christ, in the middle of a raging sea. I am a flag being whipped by the storm of grief and loss and fear. But Lige is holding onto me tight as I blow to the will of the wind. He is so outrageously generous to me in all this. He is patient with my tears, often spilling some of his own. He is insistent about me being with my family as much as I can. He is committed to making that happen. It is an inconvenience for him, but he willingly makes it for me -with joy- again and again.
So here we are, in the middle of long good-bye. Or maybe not so long. We can't know. We are each putting one foot in front of the other, muddling our way through this. We reach out in the dark grief and grab onto the first hand we find. We stumble forward together.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It occurs to me that some may not know the circumstances leading up to all this. Last October my grandpa was diagnosed with bladder cancer. Initially, he wasn't planning to treat it, but changed his mind at the last moment. Radiation and chemo was started in December. Things were going as well as could be expected. We had a really nice Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma on Christmas Eve. Christmas night Grandpa was taken by ambulance to the hospital. They discovered he had a blood infection. Sepsis is really hard to treat, but they gave him very powerful antibiotics. All January and February Grandpa was either in the hospital or a rehab facility. The blood infection kept returning, his cancer treatments were beginning to take their toll, and my Grandpa wasn't getting any better. He finished the scheduled cancer treatments, but was so zapped by everything that recovery and rehabilitation were feeling too far out of reach. When he returned to the hospital yet again, conversations were started about hospice. The family was given information and the weekend to make a decision. Monday he transitioned to the Hospice House. I think that is a fair recap.
No comments:
Post a Comment