in which Bammy dies and I turn 40

Hi there. Well, let's see. It's been a busy couple of months over here what with school dr. appts seemingly all the time, and new work, and wow. I don't know! So BUSY.

New work is awesome. My coworkers are entertaining, the food is awesome, everyone is calm and collected, what more could you want? And the clientele is pretty awesome too. For the most part.

What else? Well, I turned 40 on Monday. It feels good. So this is my hump year, more or less!

I have mixed feelings about the last 20 years. On one hand, I feel like I squiggled a lot of time away - on the other hand, it was fun for the most part and I spent some time with a bunch of different amazing people.

So while I feel like I've wasted time, I'm not really sure how it would've been better spent.

I guess what I'm getting at is that maybe if I'd not squiggled so much time away, I would've gotten to this mostly happy and content place earlier in life.

But everything happens in it's time.

Moving forward.

Bammy (my maternal grandmother) died last week. It was sudden and rather unexpected. Mentally she's been absent for the last few years, but physically she was in good shape. Friday before last she went into the hospital because she was vomiting and something was obviously wrong.

The hospital called my mom Saturday morning and said that they were going to give her blood. My mom said ok, then woke up a bit and remembered that Bammy had an advanced directive.

No blood. No feeding. No invasive tests.

She called them back, said, NO, and went to the hospital.

My sis came and got me off we went. Everyone at the hospital was lovely. The doctor respected her advance directive and put hospice orders into effect immediately.

Several hours later Bammy was back in her bed at the assisted living home.

I left this is draft form for a couple weeks - continuing now a couple of weeks later -

So I came back to the house for a bit, went back - missed her being chatty and active but did feed her a LOT of chocolate ice cream before she went back to sleep!

We all left - my mom stayed - I went back the next day, and as I was saying goodbye to her before I left for work, I realized that she was still.

An interesting side note - when people are dying their feet go cold. No really - as if the ghost is being given up from the toes upward.

I had been checking her feet all day - her toes were cold, but toes are often cold. Throughout the afternoon the coldness advanced up her foot.

We had no idea how long her dying would take - the nurse said it could be days, fortunately it wasn't.

My mom's 'sister under the skin,' Lois was there as were my mom and sister - we joined hands and Lois said a prayer since my family is not very good at that sort of thing, and the dying process ended and the newly dead process began.

It was a good death. We were all there, including my sister, who was only here for a regular visit, she had appropriate pain medication, and it did not take long.

My m0m threw a great wake party. Much laughter and reminiscing. Many people I have not seen in years that it was great to see, even under the circumstances.

And the next day we shelved her at the mausoleum. The director went to school with my brother and sister. My brother and his wife, and my sister and her husband and I went to lunch at a friend's restaurant. I went to the health department to get a tetanus shot and then we all met up at my mom's to eat leftovers. My sis and her man left the next day. I went back to work.

Life continued. It is still weird that she is not here any more. We were very close. I am glad that I came back to Pittsburgh coincidentally just in time for my grandfather's passing. I spent the horrible week of his dying with her and held her hand through the burial and wake proceedings. I am glad that I came back to Pittsburgh the first time. I saw her every week for a couple of years there. And I'm glad that I was here when her brain began to betray her. And I am so very glad that I was here for her death.

She was a kind and fun-loving woman. She was a fantastic grandmother. And when I became a grown up she was a good friend.

I am very thankful that she got to have a good death.