I kind of feel like every week something new happens to knock me off my feet.
This week it's a big one.
My husbands grandmother passed away yesterday.
I'm hoping that writing this will help me cope a little.
She was such a strong woman who insisted to on living at home, doing her own grocery shopping and volunteering at the hospital and her church all the way until the end. I didn't get a chance to know my grandparents so she was the grandma that I never had. We would all go over her house every Sunday and at 89 years old she would insist on cooking us dinner, or we would go out to eat and she would insist on paying.
She lived a long life and outlived her husband as well as two of her
three children. She was able to meet 2 great grandchildren and got to
see me and my husband get married.
Since my husband's mother died a few years back and his father has been out of the picture for 10 years, she had stepped in as a parent for him and his three brothers. She would buy them clothes and harass them about things that needed to be done around their house and tell them when they needed a hair cut. All four of her grandsons would call her everyday and come over and help her around the house or just sit and watch her beloved Law & Order with her. They would hide all of their tattoos and piercings around her and she would pretend not to notice.
A few weeks ago she fell and broke her wrist and ended up in the hospital.
They moved her to a rehab center and she just wasn't regaining her strength.
Two days ago they moved her back to the hospital and she just wasn't getting any better.
After she passed one of her neighbors contacted us and told us that grandma wanted us to go to her house to get things in order. So we sat around grandmas kitchen table and dealt with the difficult things. She had lived next to this neighbor for 27 years and had told her quite a few things that she never told us. Grandma saw her time coming and had planned accordingly.
She left detailed instructions for how she wanted things to be handled and which things she wanted to donate to her church and different charities.
Of course, being grandma who always insisted on paying for dinner, she left an envelope with some money in it so that she could pay for us to order in dinner one more time while we sorted everything out.
Grandma Audrey 1923-2012
We will miss you.
