“ I didn’t even finish my Christmas shopping Toni.”
Toni. Pronouced Ton-ee. Its not a typo. Its what my Grandma Ina called me. Toni. She called me that from a baby all the way up to my teenage years where I was wearing black eyeliner as lip liner and black motorcycle boots. She called me Toni on my wedding day and when I sobbed on her couch after two pregnancy losses.
She just found out she’s dying from cancer and she’s calling me Toni now. She’s also worried because she has 2-5 months to live and she didn’t finish her shopping.
I’m staring at the floor in the hospital numb. She’s not just my Grandma she’s my best friend. I mean that on every level. She knows what I’m thinking before I say it. We usualy have a sleepless night on the same night. We think the same things. I can’t believe this is happening. She’s 83 and will tell you “no spring chicken” and hasn’t been the same since my grandfather passed 2 years ago but selfishly I think that she can’t die. I’ve lost so many things too fast. Not her too. my first pregnancy at 20 weeks, my grandfather, another pregnancy at 6 weeks, my other grandmother and now her? Not her.
We started to organize her home care. Her insurance covers very little. We get a schedule together and as a family take turns going to her condo and sorting pills, making meals and balancing her check book.
She has me call her pastor and he comes over to pray with her. I bow my head but don’t really listen to the words. I’m mad at God. I’m mad about a lot of things and He knows why. After our first loss at 20 weeks devistated doesn’t cover the emotions I was feeling. It seemed like everything I’d known and believed was tossed in the air like a deck of playcards and scattered, with no particular order at my feet. It didn’t make sense. I was 25, not 45 why would we have a baby “ not make it”? Why would we have to go in for an ultra sound only to have the poor ultra sound tech excuse herself without looking at us and go get her superior? Why did we have a room full of baby stuff in our apartment waiting for a baby that was never going to come home with us? Why us? Was it payback for something? How can the God that I thought I knew even bring this to our table?
Grandma asks the pastor to pray for us to have a healthy baby. She knows I’ve been devistated by the thought of not being a Mom. I again, politely bow my head and I roll my eyes behind closed lids.
The next few weeks are challenging. I’m not going to get into those details. By the end of my grandmother’s life I was exhausted. While her impending death was sad, we had some beautiful talks. I felt my heart soften as she got closer to her death and maintained such devotion to God. She never felt sorry for herself. We joked, labled family photos and cried. I opened up to her again about the pain of the babies we lost. She always smiled gently and said “ Toni, you worry to much. Too much!” and then would pat my hand.
She was moved to hospice that last week and it was a lovely place. She had a private room and I’d stayed the night. It had been bad. She’d gone into diabetic shock and wouldn’t stay in bed. She would cry out for me and be convinced she was in her condo and it was flooding. I had to pretend I was in the world she was in and promised that if she stayed in bed I’d turn off the “water” that was causing the “ flooding”. She believed me and fell asleep. That moment was so sad. That wasn’t my grandma any more.
The last time I said goodbye to her she was barely awake. I took her hand and told her how much I loved her. I told her I’d miss her and that I was honored to be her grand daughter and friend. As a fleeting thought I took a deep breath and said told her to say hi to my grandfather and our babies. I then said “ When you see God, if you could pull some strings and see if maybe we could have a healthy baby I’d appreciate it.”
She smiled at me and squeezed my hand.
She passed the next day which was a Wednesday. There’s more to that story but I’m tight on space. I will only say it was very obvious that God was watching us and walking with us through that day.
2 weeks later we’d had my grandmother’s memorial service and I was tired. I was about to take a nap when I looked at the calendar. I looked again. I’d missed my period.
I found out I was pregnant with Elizabeth that day. I cried.
I prayed to God alot after that. Not because I got pregnant. It was an awesome bonus of course,but that wasn’t why. It was because of all of the ways He’d made Himself so obviously there through a horrible time. When I stopped being mad I looked back and saw there were a TON of signs along the way that he’d never left. I had left, but now I was back
No comments:
Post a Comment