This is what is the most important thing to me. My family.
I imagine this is how it is for most people. When all else goes wrong, this is all you need, your family.
However sometimes that isn’t the case.
My paternal grandmother was like that. Sure she may have said that family was all that mattered, but actions speak louder then words. The reasons for this are not fully known. Sure there are theories, but at the end of the day, that is all they are. What is known is this: about 15 years ago, all but one of her children stopped talking to her, and with them went all of her grandchildren, and eventually great grand children.
I am sure we all had our reasons for this. I know I had mine. Tony once commented to me that he felt “uncomfortable” to be around her. Not uncomfortable like one would be around someone famous, but like how one would feel being around someone infamous. The one and only time he met her was my last contact with her.
A couple of years ago a rumor went through the family that my grandmother had passed. At the time I tried to force myself to grieve. If anyone knew about grief it is me. I have lost 3 children. Surely I know how to grieve. However, as hard as I tried, I couldn’t. I felt awful. How could I be a person with so much faith in God, but I can’t even grieve my own grandmother? A couple of days later we found out she was alive, just on dialysis. I felt as indifferent to this as I did to her dying.
This last Tuesday, word got out that grandma had stopped eating and drinking. The end was definitely near. This time I told myself that it is okay to not be upset. Grieve or don’t grieve, it doesn’t make you any less of a person. I felt bad for my father, my aunt, and my uncle as they were soon going to be without both of their parents. My grandfather passed in 2004. I still felt nothing other then sorrow for my family at this prospect.
She passed last night. She was almost 88 years old.
The way I see it, we all make choices in our life. All relationships are 2 way streets. I can’t maintain a relationship with anyone if there isn’t give AND take. With just one, you don’t have a relationship. Everyday I make sure my boys know how much they mean to me. Doesn’t matter what they do, at the end of the day, they know it. I talk to both of my parents probably more now then I have since I lived in the same house as them before they got a divorce. My maternal grandmother I talk to about every other week. I would talk to her more, but how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand? Grandma is defiantly a moonbeam and always out and about! Over the years I have maintained a relationship with my ex-step father, whom I affectionately call my “dad number 2”, and much of his family. I have done all of this despite the distance that I have with all of them.
In the last 10 years I have given birth to triplets, and watched them all die in my arms. I gave birth to Maximillian, had cancer, and went though one of the toughest (on paper) pregnancies of my life to have little Nathaniel. Yes, my life has given me lemons. However with every challenge I have had, I faced it head on and got through it the best I could.
Relationships are 2 way streets. My grandmother could have reached out to me, or even my father, and said something, anything. At the end of the day she said nothing. So at the end of her life, I feel no guilt in not reaching out to her. The way I see it she made the life she wanted, and she didn’t want that life to include me, my sisters, my cousins, my father or my aunt. If she did, she would have at least tried at some point. Like I said, we all make choices.
It is sad how she died. I hope I am never in those shoes. My goal in life is to go with all of my family around me. That sounds like the best way to die. I leave this earth surrounded by my family, and I go into the next world with my lost children. What could be better? I think that is what I am taking from her passing. To remember what is really important in life. Family. And how I need to make sure to live each day, to the best I can, so I can make sure I don’t end up alone when I die, but surrounded by family.