An Era Ends

Thank you to everyone for their notes, emails, text messages and calls offering condolences for my grandmother's death. It has been nice to get them.

My grandma's passing was rather unexpected, although when someone is months away from ninety I guess these things are never completely out of the blue. There was a part of me that thought grandma would live to be at least ninety-five. Health issues aside, she seemed remarkably sturdy. When my mother described the last few minutes at her bedside (where she was, thankfully, surrounded by her five surviving children and--depending on what you believe--perhaps my Aunt Nancy who died in October as well) she marveled at the strength of her heart. Even as the breaths came further and further apart, the heart kept beating. Indeed, after the final exhalation settled, a nurse still detected a heart beat.

My grandma had a lot of heart.

She had a condition that accelerated her decline, something that neither her family nor her doctors had anticipated. But it seems her final moments were peaceful. She did not have a long drawn out illness. Her pain was brief and manageable.

But who wants to hear about THAT stuff.

I love the pictures that I posted earlier this week. They give me a lens into her life before and soon after her marriage to my grandfather--before the six kids and eleven grandchildren and two great-granchildren--a time that is hard for me to imagine. She was a fashionable woman, always. She loved shopping. She got her GED around the time she turned seventy--because she'd had to drop out of high school in her senior year when her mother fell ill. She was very social at the senior community where she lived, which was decidedly NOT assisted living. She had her group of friends with whom she had dinner every night. Many of them were there at her mass yesterday--the walking wounded, all women of course, navigating their way through their twilight years. My grandmother experienced macular degeneration for about five years now, to the point that she was nearly blind at her death. Everything blurry in the center--only clear on the very periphery. Her handwriting was shaky and slow, but still she signed and addressed every Christmas and Birthday card.

Several years ago she took to writing "I love you" on every correspondence. She was not a hugely expressive woman. But it felt like this message had become very important for her to share.

Thanks Grandma. I love you too.