Saying Goodbye

I feel both blessed and lucky to say that I’ve never experienced death in my life. But as I sit here and write this I wait for a phone call that will change that.

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I took the girls down to Florida for a last minute trip after hearing that my grandmother’s health had drastically declined. She had been in a rehabilitation center since last October for a fall that occurred in her house. Unfortunately her care at the facility wasn’t the best and her health suffered because of it. While we were down there, her health declined so bad that she had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance.

Unfortunately, even with great doctors, my grandmother wasn’t able to pull through. Her health has gotten even worse while she’s been in the hospital and within just this past week many of her organs have began to shut down. Last week we were told it was only going to be a couple of days, yesterday a couple of hours, but today my grandmother is still fighting. And to be honest, it doesn’t surprise me.

My grandmother is 90 years old and has been on her own for the past 30 years. My grandfather died a few years before I was born and she never remarried. She never even dated. She was so in love with him that she knew no one else would work for her. And she was okay with that.

But she also made sure to take advantage of every single day that she had. She was incredibly independent. It’s a quality in her that I both admire and am inspired by. Up until her fall, she was living on her own doing everything for herself and that is exactly how she wanted it.

The night before I left to come back to NYC and the last time that I saw my grandmother was in the hospital. She slept most of the time that I was with her and couldn’t speak, but I know that she could understand everything that I was telling her.

If you knew my grandmother, you would know that she was the gossiper of the family. It was something that we all laughed about because she either always had the gossip or was the first person you would go to with good gossip.

On that Sunday night, as I sat in the hospital room holding her hand, I began to tell her the greatest family gossip I had. I knew she wouldn’t say anything back, but I just needed to talk to her. Like old times. I told her story after story with no response. But one of the stories that I told her about my mom messing up her beloved lumpia recipe must have struck a chord because she let out a big grunt right after I told her. I laughed. It was then that I knew my grandma was still there. It was exactly what I needed.

As I was saying my goodbyes knowing that this would be the last time that I was going to see her, the priest from her church came in. We sat over her and prayed as I held her hand. We prayed for her comfort and peace and told her what an amazing woman she was. As he closed the prayer and we all said amen, grandma squeezed my hand.

She is going to be okay.

She may not be on this earth any longer and I won’t be able to call her up to tell her all the latest family gossip, but she will still be with us.

She will be with us as we play those games of gin rummy during the holidays (that she was infamous for cheating during,) she will be with us as we make her famous filipino dishes (that we will never be able to perfect the way she did,) and most importantly she will be in our hearts.

I love you so much grandma and will always miss you. Thank you for being such an incredible woman and role model for not only the women in our family, but for women everywhere.