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June 25, 2004
I know I've said it before. But this time, I REALLY don't know where to start. You can't imagine. You just can't.
I told you my grandmother had a brain aneurysm, I can't remember if I mentioned she went on to have a massive stroke, probably some minor ones. Though her best friend and Godson live here, I was her only family here. Not only was I very close to her but she was a pivotal person in my life and ADORED by my children. A vibrant, gifted seventy-three years young.
In the two months since that first call, I tried my best to see her every day. There were times when Grandma Jackie wouldn't wake up and times when she'd squeeze my hand or say something and my heart would soar with pride. Or relief. She was at the Montreal Neurological hospital and the nurses and therapists there were amazing. I'm in love with her doctor. Besides the part where I had a little crush on him, he was so cute and charming, it was how patient and calm and sincere he was with me. He made himself available when I was and took hours in front of the computer with me explaining every shadow on every MRI and CT scan. She had surgeries to put in a feeding tube, a shunt and another attempt at opening her arteries.
When it became apparent that she would probably never walk again and could potentially require serious nursing care, the social worker at the hospital suggested we get her out of her apartment and get rid of her car as soon as possible. Every other day we were at the apartment, packing seventy-three years worth of stuff and hauling it back to our house, to another friend's, to her best friend's. Brandan was an amazing help, he could push dollies and hold the elevator door open, Kaillan pulled things apart all over the place and Emmie always wanted up when you had twelve boxes on your head. The day we took apart my grandmother's bed, she found a teenie tiny heart pill my grandmother dropped and HAD IT IN HER MOUTH. I nearly took the pill myself to get my own contraption going again.
While we were in the mess, life couldn't have been more crazy. Brandan started soccer with Remo as the assistant coach. We did what we could to keep up with their routines, we didn't miss any of the end of the year activities at the school, who knew there would be so many! We ate crappy food every other day, Remo and I barely slept. While we considered where my Grandmother would go, depending on her hopes for rehabilitation, I'll be very honest in saying I wasn't sure how long I could keep it up. Had I known I only had two months left with her, I'd have approached things differently.
You know how hindsight is.
Last Tuesday, my grandmother was transferred to the hospital close to my house. I felt really good about the move, because on the west island, it would be so much easier for her friends to come, easier for me too. The next morning, June 16th, 2004, Dr. Bray's birthday, at 9:50a.m., I was at work when I got the call that I should go right away to the hospital, they thought she had a pulmonary embolism (clot in her lungs). I pulled in the parking lot at 10:25, with her best friend's car in front of me and my best friend Claudia, in the car behind me. While I ran for the nurse's station, Pirkko and Claudia somehow stopped at the door to her room. I don't know what made me look at them but from down the long corridor, I knew. She died maybe five minutes before and miraculously, or sadly, right before the end she started talking. Told them she did not want to be intubated. Talked! She hadn't really spoken in a month and I missed it. Remo got there just as I was going in to say goodbye. It's amazing how it doesn't feel real at all when it couldn't be more.
I went with Pirkko from there to make the arrangements at funeral home and had it in my head we were going to throw a celebration of life party. It's exactly what my grandmother would have wanted. The place was beautiful, elegant, she'd have approved. Her wish was to be cremated right away and have half her ashes buried with my grandfather, the rest with her mother. We decided to have a service there on Friday night with a reception to follow. The catch was I had already booked movers for Friday morning, we had to be out of the apartment that weekend. I tried postponing the move, but with July 1st being a major moving day here, I could not reschedule. I left there so I could make some arrangements and phone calls before I had to pick up the kids. Actually now that I'm thinking about it, I can't for the life of me remember how Brandan got home. That night Claudia and I went on a wild goose chase to find a perfect urn and picked out her clothes which were stored all over the place. The phone calls never stopped.
Thursday morning I unpacked boxes and albums in a race to find fifty pictures so we could have a photo tribute DVD made for my grandmother. That was hard because she had a million fifty pictures to choose from and she was so unbelievably alive in each of them. The music we chose was Frank Sinatra, one of her favourites, and I asked that as the last message they write on the screen "...but in the end...I did it MY way...". It was breathtaking. Before she was cremated, they brought us in to say farewell one last time. That night was the year-end barbeque at the school and I knew it was really important to Brandan that we go, so we did, though it was sort of awkward to be having meaningless conversations about the summer while inside I was feeling so sad. Anyway, we left there and went to the apartment to get ready for the movers.
Claudia met me at my grandmother's Friday morning and I should say the movers came to help her and I move. We hauled more than they did out of the apartment, they charged me an extra $140 and we were so strapped for time at the end, that when we got to my house they had to drop stuff wherever and run. Creeps. When they left she and I hustled like maniacs to prepare food for the party. Party sounds inappropriate maybe, but you have to know us to understand how fitting it is. Remo came home and we brought everything to the reception hall. I bought candles for all the tables. My only real screw-up was when I got there, the fridge was packed. A lot of my friends had ordered platters, so I took the vegetable platter and stuck them in the freezer for a few minutes so they'd stay cool. Forgot them till they froze. So what.
That day, Brandan had gone on a field trip with his class to the zoo. Wouldn't you know, when we most needed him, the bus got stuck in traffic and got back an hour and a half late? And on top of everything, I lost so much weight since the baby, my pant suit needed massive alterations. My seamstress took the whole day to go at it. God love her. God love me for getting dressed in the car on the way over. It's right after that when I started writing my eulogy.
""
Hi.
I want to first of all, thank all of you for being here tonight. It means a lot to me, it would have meant the world to my grandmother - though she would be FURIOUS that we're not taking pictures. Those of you lucky enough to have known Grandma Jackie already know the amazing woman she was. For those of you not as fortunate, allow me to introduce you...
My grandmother was incredibly thoughtful. An insatiable planner. When she entertained she obsessed over the details. Fresh flowers, more food than the Italians, handmade place cards and always her best china. If you mentioned during that dinner that you collected frogs, hated mushrooms and had a doctor's appointment in six months and two days, after you went home, she'd pull out one of her books and on the page with your name, make a note about your appointment, mushrooms and the frog she had to find you.
When my girlfriends got married, Grandma Jackie was ecstatic. When they started having babies, she saved their birth announcements. She was unbelievably talented. She would swim long after my lungs collapsed. She could paint pictures that came to life, she was passionate about cooking and baking and had maybe a million recipes she never needed to follow. She could knit and write. If we were in the middle of Loblaws and I asked her to sing Hello Dolly, she would belt it out at the top of her lungs.
When I was a little kid, Grandma Jackie bought the best, coolest presents but if I didn't have a thank you note in the mail 48 hours later, did I get a lecture on etiquette! The first time I brought Remo over, she told him she and my grandfather had just rented a blue movie and didn't think much of the story. You can imagine his eyes popped out of his head.
Grandma Jackie and I talked about what happens after you die and we concocted a plan where I would leave my running shoes out and if she can come back in spirit, she's going to tie my shoelaces together. Now I know there might be rules in heaven about this kind of thing but I have no doubt, if there's one person who would break a rule to keep her word, she'll be back.
My grandmother was honest.
Real.
Fun.
A riot actually.
She was caring and compassionate.
She was beautiful. Magical. And above all, good.
Her legacy would be to Live. Love. Laugh...and take lots of pictures.
""
The ceremony was beautiful. Kaillan wore a princess dress and knocked me out with her sensitivity. Listening to the other eulogies and the choirs, BOTH choirs she was in came to sing gorgeous songs, it was impossible not to cry. Kaillan climbed on my lap and would kiss my tears away and hug me, then hold my face with her hands and tell me she loved me and hug me. Again and again and again. The minister called the children up and explained about caterpillars and butterflies, and the next time they saw a butterfly it would be Grandma Jackie. It was really a touching analogy.
She would have LOVED the party, standing room only! We had billboards from the musicals she was in on easels, her paintings were up on the mantel, her photo albums were on the coffee tables and you couldn't help but tap your toes to the lively music. So many people told me how proud my grandmother was of me. How much I'm like her (save for the part where I have no talent and get nowhere on time!). How kind she was. How she would show up at choir practice before everyone else and set up flowers and napkins and snacks and for every concert, she'd make maps and photocopy them, at 10 cents a copy, for every single one of them. I got faxes from people who worked with her and wanted the family to know, that even though she was long retired, she was still very much a role model for them. At one of the nursing homes she simply visited, the manager called to give her condolences, saying this woman was one in a million.
I really meant magical.
We spent the rest of the weekend getting every last thing out of the apartment and as the weekend started wearing down, I started to lose some adrenalin. It really hit me she was never coming over again, would never call me again. Would never again tell me how wonderful and brilliant I am. I vowed to live life like her.
Make it fun and full. Valuable.
Little things count.
~~ and so on and so forth ~~
I'm on vacation next week and I don't have plans past going to the pool (we joined one, remind me to discuss bathing suit shopping). I need to organize my life, we're having a garage sale next weekend, the stuff, guys, you wouldn't believe the STUFF I've got to get rid of. July 10th I'm going in an Amazing Race/Fear Factor/Survivor challenge and I've decided if I have a choice between eating fish eyeballs and getting in a bathing suit, I'll eat the eye balls. And I can't even eat soggy cereal without vomiting. This weekend we're throwing a shower for one of my closest girlfriends who's leaving in two weeks to pick up the baby girl she adopted from India. All three kids are having birthdays in the next few weeks so I need to get on that. Brandan graduated from kindergarten, though up until the night before he wasn't sure he'd make the cut! I'm sure there's more, but I need to wrap this up...
I miss you guys,
Allisun
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