Broken Hearted We Walk

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 30^th. 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 2^nd 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 28^th 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"