this is a work in progress

I have been writing this for awhile and it is extremely important to me but it isn't done, I thought I would post it anyway because I need to...I just have to...I don't have a choice...I will continue to post as I write.

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I sat there holding my great grandmother's hand, her small frail body seeming to fall in and out of life. We were in her room at my mother's house facing Longs Peak lots and lots of flowers outside her multiple windows. My great grandmother loved roses, especially pink roses and when I was younger I remember one section of her entire back yard being dedicated to the planting of roses. But in the mountains my mother had multiple and variant columbines and what appeared to be wild flowers, the things that would survive in the cool mountain climate.

I turn back to my great grandmother my GG she is lying there on her bed, her breath not coming easy. I can tell she is struggling to take breath into her lungs and push it out again. My sister Liana who is only 13 lies on GG's bed holding her hand not wanting her to be alone. The Hospice nurse has told us that if it was her grandmother she would remove the oxygen that was sustaining GG's life, feel free to give her pain medication liberally, and to just camp out in her bedroom, that it wouldn't be long.

The past days had been a whirlwind and I was surprised I remembered much of anything. My mother calling me Sunday night because GG was really bad and she was scared and wanted me to come home. I did, I left my peaceful sleep to come home. When I first arrived I saw GG, in her pajamas, so small, nothing like the intimidating woman I had known. She was barely breathing, each breath seeming to take longer to come then the last. Her chest rose as though she was gasping for air. My mother told me "I've already dropped her three times I think trying to get her onto the commode." She was determined to try and use that commode, but my mother just knew she couldn't lift her again. My mother left and went upstairs and she told me, "Go sit with her, she doesn't want to be alone."

I was scared. I had never been this close to a dying person I had actually loved so much. She had deteriorated so much it didn't even seem to be her. She was enveloped by her light blue pajamas, being much too large for her body. I sat down beside her the bed squishing because of my weight. This stirred her a bit, she looked at me a slight acknowledgement of my presence beside her and then returned to her deep struggle with breath. I looked at her, her face growing pale, her one eye open, mouth slightly ajar and obviously dry. I rubbed her stomach as I do with many of my kids from the preschool in order to bring them some comfort. I was able to relax her enough for her to drift off to sleep, her morphine and breathing medicine also helped with that.

She laid there, I leaned over and whispered in her ear. "Grandma I love you but it's ok, you can let go." I started to whimper, my eyes welling up with tears. I couldn't help but cry when around her because she had changed so much in such a short time. "Grandma, I promise we'll do your hair and make you look nice when you go. I promise even if I have to roll your hair myself I will." I manage to choke it out through tears. I love her, she has been like a mother to me, to my mother, and to many of the children in her life. I miss who she was, her somewhat angry, pessimistic self that was tinged with moments of joy and happiness. She found joy in watching her grandchildren play everyday and was always smiling about their goofy antics. But I hate that now she is not the woman I love, she is not the woman she once was, she is a simply a mass of human being, just lying, just being. Barely living.

A pastor comes. He was supposed to give her communion but she was too weak to sit up and to elusive to know what was even happening around her. My mother, her mother (my grandmother), sister, and I gather around my GG's bed, the pastor places his hands on her and blesses her. My mom has been reading the Bible, something she never does and does not believe in for herself, but she has been doing it for grandma, to maybe provide her comfort. The pastor continues the blessing, I am so warm, sweating in fact, the prayers he is saying are intense. If he weren't Lutheran and I weren't surround by ethnically Lutheran people it would almost seem to be like a witches chorus. A pagan healing circle, but the words are Christian, and they aren't meant to heal, they are meant to give blessing to pass. I do not want her to heal, her time to heal has come and passed. She managed to heal a few times before and those times I still needed her to be there, I needed her to see me graduate college. I needed to know she was around to make my own life feel safe. And I still loved her but I didn't want to force her to continue a life for mine and my families own selfish reasons.

My mother breaks down crying. Finally, in front of the pastor, my mother cries out, "What am I going to do without you grandma? What am I supposed to do with my life when you go?" My mother's life was going to drastically change when my GG left because she had been devoting so much time and energy to her care. What was my mother going to do? Not only had she been caring for my grandma but she had been receiving a monthly stipend for providing her care. What would my mother do with $600 less per month. Not that my mother was doing it for the money but it needs to be noted that she was worried about what would happen with the money once my grandma was gone. I look to my mother, I have not seen her hysterical like this in years. She is so upset, her breathing heightened, the tears flowing freely. The room is burning up and I feel myself losing breath. My grandmother has lost most consciousness, and I feel myself needing to leave the room, breathe fresh air for a moment. The pastor stays and as I get up to leave he feels the need to ask me questions. Where do I go to school? What do I study? Things that at that moment seemed completely insignificant to me. I don't know anything, I don't care about anything. I don't want to know things. I care about this moment and it is being ruined. I leave the room, I walk outside and stare at the mountains. I do not feel my hands, the hands that had been holding and stroking my grandmother with. I don't want questions, I don't want answers I just want to be. I breathe, I think, I walk back into the house.