The Dirt Field

My grandmother is dying. She has about a million things wrong with her health at this point, and even though she has proven to be incredibly strong and resilient, each day that goes by is a day in which she gets a bit weaker and a bit closer to the end. This past week, she moved into a hospice care center where she will spend the rest of her fading life.

The funny part is that she is has been through so much and yet still she survives. As a family, we’ve all said our final goodbyes a half dozen times, we’ve planned for and expected the worst, and we’ve heard multiple bits of bad news about her health from doctors who are certain this time will surely be the end. I even stayed up late one night last week, crying and waiting for the call from my father. And yet Grandma is still hanging out at the hospice center, probably taking up yoga or competitive knitting as I write this.

People who have heard that my grandmother is dying generally ask if we are close, and that’s a hard question to answer. After my grandpa died about ten years ago, my grandma became a different person. She was easily irritated for the first few years (who could blame her?) but then settled into being a strong, independent woman who had her job, her friends, her life, and her travels around the world. Back in 2003, she even took my parents and me with her on a tour around Ireland, where she and I shared a hotel room the whole time. I thought that would be so awkward, but after the first night or so, it felt completely natural to stay with Grandma.

In the years since then, I never visited as much as I should have, but I tried to call once in a while to at least say hello and let her know I was thinking about her. She has the same attitude about the phone as I do; I’ll call, she’ll ask a few questions about my life, thank me for calling, tell me she loves me, and hang up. Wham, bam, we’re done in under a minute or two. The one time she kept me on the phone chatting for almost fifteen minutes was so remarkable that I called my parents afterwards to share the news.

I also sent her letters and cards, sometimes to just check in and tell her about my life and other times to wish her well if she was ill or to share good memories about my grandfather on the anniversary of his death. She used to tell me when I was younger how much she enjoyed my thank you notes and cards, so I like to think the letters I continued to send brought her happiness when she opened the mailbox.

Now she is in a hospice center, so I can’t call her house or mail her letters to anymore. The funny thing is that this has made me realize that I was partly reaching out to her because it made me feel close to her. Writing to her wasn’t just for her sake, it was for mine as well. I don’t know what I will do when she is not around anymore to even open a card I bring to her bedside.

If history is any proof of what’s to come, that’ll never be an issue and she’ll probably do the eulogy at my own funeral in fifty years. I would love that, because the idea of never hearing her voice on the other end of the line or getting a card from her on my birthday is too much to even imagine. I’ve gotten a small taste of that sorrow each time we think it’s the end of the road for her, but every time she bounces back, I forget that feeling, forget to make time to go visit her, and keep on pretending I have all the time in the world.

I was going to wait to write about her until after she goes, because I figured that would be the right time to say something. But I chose to write this today because I just read the website of a friend who lost someone close to him last week to cancer. He had kept a candle burning in his kitchen for years throughout her long battle, but now that she has died, he no longer keeps the candle burning. I wanted to share the story about my grandmother so that I could explain that starting just over a week ago, I began wearing a small silver cross – not because I am in any way religious, but instead because she is and it is my way of honoring her, her life, and her beliefs. I will wear this cross until she is gone and then long after, until one day the chain finally wears away. I will wear it to remind me of her and her strength and grace, to remind me to be a better, kinder person, and to remind me that she loved me in her own way and I loved her in mine.

So you see, my friend, there is no reason you should not still keep lighting candles to keep your friend in your life. People we love lose battles to age or disease, they move on to new and better places where they no longer hurt or feel weak, but those of us who are still here should not stop doing what we can to remember and honor them.