Around my birthday weekend in November, my Granny was
struggling with a chest infection, she was weak from coughing and hoarse, so I
told her we could postpone celebrating my 30th. We never did get to
have a knees up…
It’s almost a blur, she couldn’t quite shake the weakness
after her illness, then her leg was very swollen, next thing she was in
hospital for over a week with blood clots in her leg, and they discovered why
she was so terribly breathless… her left lung was barely functioning, filled
with water, with an embolism and evidence of a tumour. I remember almost
fainting in the afternoon heat, holding Granny’s hand as she whispered “I’m
dying” – I fought so hard to keep her spirits up while I was screaming inside.
I remember driving to a friend’s house, tears streaming down my cheeks,
screaming as loud as I could. I tried to explain what was happening to all my
concerned friends, in measured tones… my voice sounded hollow in my ears. I
didn’t handle it very well, I was cross, I was teary, my stomach cramped… I was
trying to balance all the aspects of my life. I wanted everything to stop. I
prayed and prayed.
Granny went back to The Home, but wasn’t walking, and was so
weak. We spoke about taking her to Christmas lunch in a wheelchair, we spoke
about her 2nd great-grandchild, due in 6 months, we spoke about the
things we would do, and we asked her to be strong. She tried, sometimes her
wicked grin cracked through, she was her cheeky self. Other times she seemed so
weakened and overcome with the December heat. She spoke of twelve’s; I told her
she was staring at the clock too much. I felt so ill for the whole of 12/12/2012….
I didn’t want the twelve’s to mean anything. We got through that, but still
tiny pieces of my heart were breaking off, I was exhausted, I was trying to
move house, I was doing renovations… I needed everything to just be ok. I
prayed and prayed.
The nurses tried to get Granny to walk, her legs just collapsed
underneath her, we think that was the moment her left hip just gave way. Back
to the hospital, talk of spending Christmas there, kind doctors telling us they
wanted to get her comfortable. I felt so young and so grown-up as a doctor
explained everything to me… I wanted to stop them, say “wait, my mommy will be
here now… I’m just a kid” The hip replacement surgery was scheduled for
Christmas Eve – we sat on nails the whole day, waiting to hear that she had
come out of surgery – in the end they postponed the surgery, her blood was
still too full of blood thinners. My heart sang as I held her hand and asked
Brother to read her the Christmas story from the Bible, she would be “with us”
for Christmas. I needed everything to be normal. We had a big family Christmas;
we prayed for her, we smiled as her great-grandson opened the gift we’d bought
on Granny’s behalf. We made a fuss. Mom took her a cracker and some chocolates.
Dad and I went to her later, I told her all the stories, I fed her some ice-cream,
and she grinned and closed her eyes in the sheer bliss that is slightly melting
vanilla ice-cream. That funny, straight smile. I kissed her forehead and said I’d
see her tomorrow.
Granny held on until about 4am on the 28th of
December. God spared her for Christmas and spared her the pain of surgery. I
couldn’t see her suffer anymore, and she really did struggle in those last two
days.
"You are always in my heart"
