The day my Grandma Left Us

It was a Saturday night in early December. I handed my grandma the first payment for her car that I was buying from her. She was charging me next to nothing, but she was old, and not wealthy, and I knew she appreciated anything I could give her. Especially tonight. She really needed that payment. She lived in a small house on our property, and I walked over to her house to deliver the money. We talked for a little bit, and then my mom came to tell me we were going to dinner and the bookstore. I gave my grandma a hug goodbye, and she told me to have a nice evening. I gave her one last hug and left the house.

The next morning, I had to go to work. Ordinarily, we would have been attending my grandma's club's Christmas Party, but she had refused to go this year because she had been fighting with one of the other women who took her presidency away. I had always enjoyed these parties as a child because they marked the beginning of a string of festivities. Next year, though, I knew things would be back to normal. I went to work, and seven hours passed by uneventfully. An hour before I was off, our neighbors who were also friends of my grandma's walked in. They asked to speak to me, and told me my grandma had a stroke and my mom was at the hospital with her. I was allowed to leave work early, but not allowed to go the hospital. She would be fine, they said.

It had been one of those days where I wasn't eating. I was empty, and I felt great, but as soon as I got in the house I became ravenous. After finishing my dinner which was a random assortment of things I didn't have to cook, I felt awful. I retreated to my room and started to exersize turning my Something Corporate cd on as loud as possible. I felt miserable and went to the bathroom to try and throw up what I had eaten, but I couldn't. I went back to exersizing, but nothing I did could numb the pain. They said she would be alright though. I don't remember when my mom came home. My grandma was still alive, but she couldn't move her right side and she couldn't speak.

My brother and I didn't go to school the next day. We went to the hospital she had been transferred to. Her eyes were open and she said hello. We all breathed a sigh of relief. She was alright, things were going to be ok. After a few minutes with her though, this was clearly not the case. She obviously had no idea who we were. In fact, she thought we were various deceased realatives, and was convinced that there was somone breathing behind her. 

That was one of the hardest Christmases. We didn't make her special Christmas cookies that year. That was our tradition. We would spend the entire weekend making cookies with her old fashioned pump, and a recipie that was yellowed and torn, but classic. There were no presents from her this year which always ranged from bizarre to thoughtful. There was no help with Christmas dinner. In fact, Christmas was not even at our house this year. Nothing was the same. She never did come home. She lives in an awful facility where they let her sit in her diaper all day, and where you have to scream at the staff to do their jobs. The place smells bad, and she used the threaten to kill herself, but she's become numb to the place now.

She doesn't respond to most things we tell her. The only thing she remembers is that I drive her car. She tells anyone that will listen that I drive her car. She absolutely loved that car. I suppose she remembers this because I was the last human interaction she had before her stroke. I miss her. I walk past her empty house everyday, and I tell myself not to slam the gate because it will wake her. Then I remember that there is no one to awaken. It has been almost two years, and I still think about her everyday. Her biggest dream was always to be alive when I graduated high school. She wanted to be at my graduation so badly. That day came and went this June and she was not there. I told her I graduated and she just smiled at me. The same smile as when she heard her best friend had cancer. People ask me if I have ever had anyone close to me die. Yes. Yes, I have.

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