Who Looks Forward to Monday?

Well, other than people who LOVE their job.

I'm looking forward to Monday, because the weekend will be over. And before I feel bad about wishing time away, let me tell you that this weekend has been really, really rough. Warning: read only if you are in a mood to be at least slightly depressed.

My grandmother is dying. She is 86, so it is not a giant tragedy in the theoretical scheme of things, but it sucks in practice. It has been one of the greatest blessings of my life to have grown up with all four grandparents alive, fairly healthy, and physically/emotionally present. It's been awesome, but of course this has its downside, mainly, like getting used to having them around, and finding it very upsetting when they aren't able to be any more. The first loss came about seven years ago, when my dad's mother passed away from cancer. As cancer deaths go, it was fairly quick and peaceful, and I was fairly removed from the process, as my grandfather fiercely guarded her privacy and didn't allow me to see her the last few weeks of her life. It was very disconcerting, to all of a sudden have one of my favorite people in the whole world, not just my family, suddenly not be there anymore (I don't exaggerate how wonderful she was--for her eulogy, the minister substituted her name for the word "love" in Corinthians 13, and it was pretty darn close to accurate). The loss was slightly mitigated by the fact that my grandfather has since remarried, to one of my second favorite people in the whole world, and we grandkids got an incredible "bonus-Mema" to even out the 4 person standard.

My mom's dad passed away last year. It was a little less tragic in that he was older, and had been declining, and actively complaining about stil being alive, for years, but traumatic in its own ways I won't really go into. In this case, as well, I was a bit removed, and didn't see him for the last few months he was here.

This grandparent loss in a lot of ways has been the hardest. Through my whole life, this Mema has been an eternal presence. It's not always been for the better, she has a sometimes contentious relationship with my mom, and she is not exactly the sweet grandma you see on tv (I vividly remember being so excited to show her how well I could play Chopsticks on the piano, and she giving me this giant smile and saying "Oh, I've always thought that was the most annoying song in the world, haven't you?" Hmph.) but I love her. Short, quirky, and feisty, she was the grandparent who was at every Christmas dinner and every school event. Despite loads of family drama and more health problems than you can shake a stick at (breast cancer multiple times, skin cancer, three hip replacements--and no, she's not a tripod, she broke 1 hip replacement--etc, etc), she took everything in her stride, and just kept going on, traveling and socializing without seemingly any worries in the world, our personal family Energizer bunny.

A few weeks ago, the Energizer bunny got knocked over. Her congestive heart failure flared up and she went into acute renal failure. They tuned her up and discharged her, and while for the first time in her life she was unable to live independently, it seemed like she was stable. I had a bad feeling in my gut, though. I don't claim to be psychic, but having seen her a few weeks ago when she was still weak from an UTI, and hearing about these health problems, I had a really bad sense of the future. And while normally I am relieved to hear I am always right (because I am always right :) this time, I was not so happy. I got a call on Thursday night that the doctor had said Mema might not make it through the night.

Although I debated going to Norfolk that minute, I hate leaving my coworkers with no coverage, and put a half day in on Friday, driving home like a bat out of hell (which, to be fair, is only a few miles faster than my normal speed) at noon. And Mema was still there. She is actually still here, but only in body. Having a rudimentary knowledge of medicine, I can't believe she is here, and that she was as alert as she was for so long. Multiple systems are failing or have failed, and as she is DNR and is refusing any treatment to prolong her life, it has to be just a matter of time. Unfortunately, one thing that is not failing is her sense of pain, and managing it has proven to be difficult. She is finally on a morphine drip, and seems finally to be out of it enough to not feel the pain anymore.

So, that is awful. She has always been so with it, but this weekend she was confused and agitated, and distracted by the waves of pain that kept hitting her. After a good long ugly cry on Thursday--you know, the kind that sends your cats running for cover with each loud, honking noise-- I've made my peace with my grief over the pure loss of my Mema, but there are so many other things to struggle with. It is so hard to watch someone you love be in pain. And the situation is doubled because of how much my mother is suffering, watching her mother suffer. Watching them, they make a good case for euthanasia. Obviously politically it is hard to endorse something that can be so terribly abused, but personally? I'd be hard pressed to judge the nurse for giving a little too much morphine.

Anyway, to add to it this is the severely dysfunctional side of the family--as opposed to the slightly dysfunctional side of the family-- and the dysfunction is in full force. There's the uncle who means well but is just plain dumb (I guess I should say socially unintelligent, but my patience has been tested), the aunt who is super needy and who should be tolerable since she is long distance but who has discovered text messaging and is proving 140 characters is plenty of time to be unnecessarily attention-seeking, the uncle who still hasn't forgiven my parents for the drama around my granddad's death and who never misses even the slightest opportunity to say something snide and belittling to or about them, the aunt who is a terminal one-upper ("Oh, Ginny is teaching English in Guatemala? Well, the last time I was in Central America I spent the whole time mixing concrete for the new school in a bucket with my feet!") and so on and so forth. Being forced to spend so much time with them is close to as painful for my mom as watching her mom be in so much misery. And watching her be in pain is painful.

And in the nature of things, I am the only daughter who could come home. I mean, it's getting ridiculous at this point. I don't consider myself tied to the apron strings; I have lived in lots of faraway places, and done cool stuff in my life, and at many other neutral, un-morbid times, my sisters have been the ones within driving distance versus me. Yet I have managed to be the only one there at the time for each one of these grandparent losses. Right now, Cary is in Seattle, Ginny is in Guatemala, and clearly neither of them can get to Norfolk as fast as I can from Charlottesville. It is purely bad timing, and while I am always happy I could be there, it is so hard to be there by yourself. I wanted my sisters.

And I wanted my significant other. Who, lest we forget, doesn't exist. And before you start saying, wow, can you make everything about being single, well, in this case, I stand by my sadness. Last year at my grandfather's funeral, Cary had Chris and Ginny had Dan, and I had no one. Clearly, I don't have "no one" in my life. Lucky as I am I have plenty of people to love and who love me, and I am grateful for each one. My friends have been heroic in being my rock, both by being awesome forces of light in my everyday life and in cases such as this weekend, where they let me hug and call and cry and act like a whiner as much as I needed, often despite the fact that they're dealing with their own hard stuff. But there is a difference; I don't have that person to whom I can say, I need you to come to Norfolk with me this weekend and sit in a hospital room watching my grandmother pass, and know without question they will be there. I don't have that person who is there solely to hold my hand after I finish holding my Mema's or my mother's. It's probably a selfish wish, but after a while, you start to wonder how many more traumatic life events you make it through without that kind of support. Or, how many positive events--moments like when we touched down in Guatemala, and Cary texted Chris, and Ginny texted Dan, and I...updated my facebook. Quite a bit of a disconnect. But what can you do?

So anyway, to add to the sadness, I got a phone call from one of my best friends telling me her bofriend's dog had died, suddenly. Seems like small potatoes in comparison to the grandmother, but damn, I loved that dog. He was a big goofy golden retriever who chewed my socks and jumped up on me, and he was just pure joyous love. I always called him my boyfriend. And my friend and her boyfriend loved that dog, and they are of course devastated. Having them be devastated, and me be devastated, was an awful lot to add to an already sad day. The ONLY good news is that, Lucky adds to our family friend who died two weeks ago of liver failure, which adds to my grandmother, and we may have hit the magic three, which yes, is what passes for good news right about now. And hopefully that means things will turn around.

Ok, so that is the story of my weekend. I feel so guilty for having left the family and coming back to Charlottesville, but there is always work, and Mema will never notice the distance. And I am so tired. My head has not stopped hurting and my heart has not stopped aching since that Thursday night phone call. It will be pretty nice to shelve personal stuff and freak out about work stuff for a few hours at a time. Warped, no?

Thank you for letting me journal (aka cry online). I appreciate it, and I appreciate you, and I know everyone is going through their own struggles, and I wish you the best with them. Feel free to call on me as I have called on you. hugs and best wishes.