Losing My Grandma

I thought delivering my baby was the worst pain I would ever experience. Then three weeks later on August 7, 2011 something even more painful happened. I lost my grandma to lung cancer. She was diagnosed with cancer 3-4 months prior, had one partially successful treatment, lots of hope and strength, then unsuccessful treatments/poor immune responses, and then her health rapidly declined until she passed away. It was the first time I lost someone so close to me and it literally broke a piece of my heart off. It still upsets me strongly, which is why I am reflecting about it almost 6 months later. I remember feeling shocked, sad, angry, then shocked again, devastated, hopelessly depressed, furious, confused, and every other emotion possible. I was so emotionally upset that I would have rather given birth dozens of times over again. The emotional pain was nothing in comparison to giving birth after all the drugs/pain relievers wore off. Just a couple days ago, I had another emotional breakdown while thinking about how I would never see my grandma again, at least in this lifetime. I started crying softly, trying to hold it in (which is a dumb thing to do...), then Bill noticed and it all came out in a big explosion. I was sobbing fiercely until I started thrusting my arms and kicking and just having a complete fit. There is absolutely nothing I can do about my grandma passing away. There is absolutely no way to change what has happened. That is a hard concept for me. I have never truly experienced this and I was especially angry because my grandma could have lived another 20 years or so. She was only 63.

I spent as much time as I could with my grandma during her last week of life. She had pneumonia and was bed rest in the hospital with failing cancer treatments. There are two memories that are really important to me that I would like to share. The first night I visited her, when things had gotten really bad, she gave me a big kiss on my forehead. I will never forget that moment. After that, the few things she said were hard to understand due to all the drugs. She was in a lot of pain. Then she slept a lot, hardly ate a thing until I watched her completely stop functioning. I watched her dwindle down from appearing really healthy to lifeless. It was the worst thing in the world. Second memory I would like to share. It actually really hurts me too because it is related to my baby, her great-grand daughter. She did not get a chance to visit Miss A in the hospital when she was born because of her condition. Miss A was 3 weeks old when my grandma passed away. She never had the chance to hold her or talk to her BUT she did flash one big smile in the hospital when I brought Miss A in to see her. I will never forget that smile because at that point she was not functioning well. She was sleeping a lot and I could hardly understand her. I definitely couldn't communicate with her well. I told her "Grandma, Miss A is here to see you." She scrambled to get the pictures I brought her earlier. I said, "No, Grandma she is right here." She looked up at her and then gave me a big smile. That is all the response I got from her but it was enough because she got to meet Miss A.

Only time can heal this kind of pain. Though, I have a feeling it will never go away.