Death is heavy

On May 30, 2019, I witnessed my grandmother's death.

We knew it was coming.  On Sunday, Grandma had been in the hospital and found out she was bleeding internally.  She declined medical intervention and said she was ready to go home.  In this case, home meant both my mother's house and heaven.  My grandma was ready to go home.  When I came up to the hospital that day, she told me all about her plans to go home on hospice and die.  She was happy with her choice.  She was grateful that her children were supportive of her choice even though they didn't like it.  Let me repeat, she was full of joy that it was her time to go.  She was ready.  She knew.  And so my mother took her home.  And we waited. 

Every day during this week I came to the ranch after work to sit with my grandma, to give my mom and aunt and uncles the chance for a break.  Today, when I arrived, I could feel ... something different in her room, something heavy, something new and uneasy, but I didn't know what it was.

I went into Grandma's room and sat in a chair at the foot of her bed.  My Aunt Dolly was with me, as my mother and uncles were taking care of other things.  We sat visiting and talking with Grandma.  She made a noise, it sounded like a gurgle, so we both moved from the foot of the bed to the top.  One of us on each side.  We adjusted the bed so she was at an incline to help her breathing.  I stroked her arm as Dolly caressed her cheek.  We told her how much we loved her and we spoke all the words of love we knew.  She made these strange sounds a few more times.  She made a few grimaces.  I asked Dolly if we should go get the others- I wanted them to be there if it was the end, but I didn't want my mama to see her mother making the pained expression.  We waited a few minutes- patting, caressing, loving.  And then her breathing slowed.  I told Dolly I was going to go get mom- she said she would get Paul- and then I realized we were both leaving and I said I would stay and asked her to please get mom.  She hurried out of the room calling my uncle''s name and sending someone else to wake my mother.

I was finally alone with my grandma for the first time in days.  I sat beside her.  I gently touched her brow, her cheek, her arm.  I thanked her for teaching me how to live and die on my own terms as she was doing.  I thanked her and I told her I loved her so many times, so many, many times.  "I love you, Grandma, I love you."  And as her breathing slowed, she made one gasp and, I don't know why, but I started counting... I made it to 45 before she took another breath.  And then it was a minute.  And I just kept telling her how much I loved her... that I was there... that her children had all come... that she was brave... that I loved her and she was not alone.  And I found the pulse in her neck and watched it because there was no more breath to watch or feel.  And then they got there.  And I told them it had been over a minute since she breathed.  And Dolly held Grandma and wailed, "Mom, no!  Mom!" and it was one of the most beautiful and devastating cries I have heard in my life.  The sound of love.  The sound of a woman losing a mother she has known for 30 years.  

 I touched her cheek.  Grandma was already growing cold... so quickly.  And then my mama came and it had been two and her pulse was gone and I moved from the bed because Grandma's children were there now.  And then I told my mama I would make the call... and she said we were supposed to wait five minutes... and I said I would wait however long she wanted, but that Grandma was gone.

Soon after I made the call.  I made many calls.  I walked through the back field and called everyone who needed to know.  I watched the sun drop low in the late May sky as I told so many people that it was over; Grandma was at peace.  

I stood beside my stepdad, our arms around each other, as we watched my aunt, uncles and mama say goodbye to their mama.  I watched as the stress and energy and nerves from the last five days deflated down to grief.  I watched as the hospice woman came to minister to my family.  I watched as the funeral home so respectfully cared for all of us in their gentle handling of my grandmother and all of our feelings.  We all left the room as they wheeled her out because ... it hurts.  

And then I was so tired.  The burden of witnessing death is heavy.  I was not sad, I was not broken, but the weight was oh so very heavy.  I never understood that there was a weight to death, a feeling in the air, but there is and I will never forget it.  

I was not close to this grandma of mine.  But she was my grandma, and my mother's mother.  And she taught me, all the way at the end of her life, that people can always change.  She taught me to live and die on my own terms.  

Already my memory is fuzzy.  Already I have forgotten and muddled the order of events of this day.  These are just my memories and my version of the truth.  Reality may be different, but this is my story.  On May 30, 2019 Pearl May King died as I stroked her cheek, counted her pulse, and spoke words of love to her.  I did not grieve her until six weeks later, when my tears finally fell and I let go of the weight I had been carrying.  

Death is heavy, my friends, death is heavy.  The burden must be shared. I told my Aunt Dolly that we are bonded forever now because we lived through the last moments together.  

I don't know what I believe about an afterlife, but my grandma believed in Heaven, and I like to imagine her there.  She is with her husband and her sister, and she is laughing at something she said that cracked everyone up.  And her body is strong and whole again.  And she feels our love traveling through time and space and making the Heavens feel a little more like home.

This is the last picture I took of my Grandma Pearl at her last outing.  Three generations- I so wish I had gotten the fourth in with us!