Grandma was the "glue" that held us together as
a family, brought out our best sides, and taught us all to love to read...
these are the first ideas that spring to mind when I think about her role in
our family.
That, of course, says almost nothing about her
personally; it speaks more about her founding persona in the continuing event
of us living in an extended family culture and it is worth noting. At our
family get-togethers, everyone in the room was there because of her, and we
were many. At least by this time, ours was definitely a matriarchal family, and
she was its head. She was, without question, someone we all got along with, we
all loved, and we all relied on in one way or another. We were a practicing
extended family, while she lived among us, and we all-too-quickly drifted into
our own separate, nuclear families after her passing. To me, the loss of
Grandma was a significant loss of our family and a dramatic change in our
family structure and practicing culture. We still bond to the name Sabatini and
we still remember how to make many of the Italian dishes we learned from her,
she who learned much about cooking from Grandpa. He believed that Calabrese
food was too close to Sicily for his liking and he believed that there was
something wrong with the minds of people who put sugar in their sauce. It went
hand-in-hand with his ill-feelings towards the mafia and he was adamant about
this. He taught her how to cook his food, so our food legacy comes from him
through her, for the most part.
Now we infrequently have large family get-togethers and
even when we do, we are not all together for a variety of reasons: obstacles based on distance, grudges or a lack
of generational and inter-generational compatibility or, who knows why, but we
have splintered away from our former collective connectedness. It is my opinion that as we rapidly developed our
separateness, away from our former extended Italian family culture, we became
more in keeping with the modern American
family culture. In a perverse way, we have become Grandpa
and Grandma’s dream of their progeny being American, for good or for ill.
Although I was a part of this transition, it saddens me sometimes because the
culture of our family is more like our history, rather than our present. You
miss what you felt you were not a part of, living in California; I miss what I
used to have now that it has changed. It is almost too much to hope that maybe
sharing our family stories will re-stir some of these shared bonds.
On this day, her birthday, I am thinking about her life
as an encapsulated segment of her mortal existence, believing very much in an “after
life” (and a “before life,” too, for that matter). One of the things you were
too young to remember well was her passing. It was actually a very beautiful,
though difficult, learning experience. The narrative you posted to your FaceBook
today made me think of her last days, so I hope you don’t mind me sharing my experiences
of Grandma’s passing with you. (I am
reposting the link to the narrative you shared in the link below, in the event
that other readers may share the remarkable piece of writing themselves. Thank
you for that. http://tropmag.com/2013/sonata/#.UUoCqxpmFGA.facebook)
I spent a lot of time at Grandma’s bedside during her final extended
hospital stay. Her death was not unexpected and knowing the end was near did
not make it any easier for us to handle. Her children were more distraught than
I have ever seen them, before or since. We all were aggrieved to our core as
the expected end approached, wanting it over with (for her) and not over with
(for us) simultaneously. The first three
stories may not be in proper sequence because these experiences have balled
themselves into what seems now like a single extended event.
Being a relative newlywed, I was unaccustomed yet to the
many challenges of marriage and asked Grandma if there was any one particular
thing about which she and Grandpa used to argue about more than others during
their marriage. I remember her laughing quietly and quickly answering, “That’s
not a hard question to answer, there is not even a close second.” She had a
beautiful smile and even lying in the hospital bed, with a respirator plugged
to her nose, she was so beautiful, it almost hurt my heart. I remember thinking
that I had to burn this image into my mind, knowing that soon I would have to rely
on retaining images mentally in an effort to hold onto her beyond death. I
remember thinking this, even as I strained my ears to hear her answer since she
was balancing speaking and breathing so her voice was low and soft. “We argued
most about the children. Your grandpa was a strict disciplinarian and I thought
he was too hard on the kids. He thought I indulged them too much.” Her eyes
seemed to be watching something far away for a moment while she chuckled,
reliving something intimate that was shared between she and Grandpa as parents.
I remember feeling
relieved by her answer because it seemed that my husband and I were similar in
this way, feeling better about having my sometimes too soft heart. Over the
years that followed, Keith and I often recounted this conversation as a way of
proving that neither of us was wrong when we discussed/disagreed/argued about
the children because if Grandma and Grandpa had to work these decisions out, we
would have to as well. We conveniently chalked these disagreements off as
gender disagreements and it probably kept us from thinking of each other as the
progenitor of our children’s destruction due to bad parenting. I remember
taking her hand and thinking that it was too cold, but when I asked her if she
was cold, she just fluffed her own blanket and said, “don’t worry about it, my
hands have been cold since I got here.” I didn’t want her to be cold, so I held
her hand until Keith, with his warm hands, took both of hers in his and held
them until they felt warm.
I
Grandma and Uncle Bernie dancing at Shelly's Wedding
Flash forward to the next remembered event at the hospital
when a member of the staff came in to collect Grandma for a trip to the MRI
scan that was scheduled for her. She was only 4’10” in life, and “shrunk” to 4’9”
by the time she was 84 years old, so I was accustomed to her size. But, for
whatever reason, at that moment she seemed so suddenly small and vulnerable that
I didn’t want her to be alone with the hospital. I asked the nurse if I could
come along to help explain to her what was going on and to keep her from
getting disoriented or frightened, as older people are often wont to do in
hospitals. I was ecstatic when consent was granted and I walked along at the
side of her rolling gurney telling her, “I’m with you Grandma, they’re taking
you for an MRI but I’m going to stay with you.” She just smiled and nodded. I
asked her from time to time, “Grandma, are you doing alright?” She would say, “yes,
Nancy, I’m ok.” As long as I kept asking, and she kept answering, I was
fulfilling my duty.
When it was time to put her on the sliding table to move her
into the machine, she was looking at it like she wanted to bolt. Her eyes
started to dart around as if she were looking for an out. I stopped them for a moment
and said, “Look, she is getting scared. I have to tell her what’s going on or
you are not touching her. She doesn’t have to be scared.” After I talked with
her a few minutes, she calmed down and acquiesced to them moving her onto the table,
knowing what was coming. I had never seen her worried like that before and I
was glad I was with her. I got my B.A. in psychology and I remembered that
these situations can sometimes overwhelm older people and I was anxious at ever
sound, every motion and every possible detail that might startle or disturb
her. She was alright until almost the end when she started to fidget and she
asked them to “Get me out of here. Please, get me out of here.”I told her, “It’ll
just be another minute Grandma, you’re doing really well. Just hold on one more
minute.” I spoke calmly but my heart was beating fast at the thought of her
becoming upset in what seemed like a monster of a machine.
By the time they pulled her out, she had fear in her eyes.
Not just worry, but she had the expression of a trapped animal and I didn’t
want her heart to be taxed. “I’m here Grandma. You’re all done. This is Nancy,
I’m here with you. You’re in the hospital and we’re about to go back to your
room. You are ALRIGHT NOW.” I added the stress to the last two words to
separate her fear from a new moment of calm that I was trying to usher in for
her. I never saw fear in her eyes before and it was of great relief to me when
I saw her recognize me as I took her hand and kissed her cheek. I told her I
was really proud of her, feeling strangely like I had some nerve acting like a
soothing adult to my Grandma who was the epitome of peace in our family. I held
her hand, walking next to her on the way back, bending awkward corners with the
orderly pushing the gurney. They were good sports and could’ve refused to
accommodate my wishes to stay at her side, but they would’ve had one hell of a
fight and somehow I think they sensed it.
When we got back to her room and she was back in bed, I kissed her cheek
and moved out of the way of the tide of relatives that now took my place. I
went in the hall to collect myself, shaking now inside if not outside. I was
surprised when ALL of Grandma’s children thanked me for staying with her. I was
told that I did for them what they could not, at that moment, do for
themselves, which was to be strong for Grandma.
Every one of them had been my strength as a child and now it
was totally surrealistic that I had somehow risen above my pain when they could
not. It was too close for them. I would like to say I felt really proud in that
minute, but there was another feeling altogether that was taking place. I was
quietly angry. I was angry that my Grandma couldn’t live for ever, free of
fear, pain, and even minor inconveniences. I could not give her that, but I would
be damned if she had to face anything alone. I wasn’t mad at the family, just
the opposite. I knew that their grief required me to be as gentle with them as
I could. I could not change what was happening, but I could help. All of us.
All of them. Her. Mostly her. Time opened up for me in a strange way as I saw
rapid scenes of time passing, wondering how this normal transition from life to
death could ever feel normal. It can’t.
III
Although both of our mothers consider themselves Catholic
Buddhists, Grandma was Catholic. She spent a great deal of her life praying and
living by the faith that helped her make sense of life. I have often stepped
down from my inclination to blame the Catholic Church for every injustice ever
associated with it, and there were many of them from the Crusades to the
Spanish Inquisition, to the priest who refused my mother communion after her
divorce. They also refused to serve Jessica communion when my mother decided
that Jessica was ready to make her first communion before the Church did. I
remember the priest refusing to give my mother money to buy us shoes so we
could start school as we struggled with life without a father for the first
time. None of those things made a difference when I realized that Grandma and
Grandpa’s investment in the Church, their faith, obedience and financial
offerings were not wasted, no matter what the Church looked like to me in my
quest to understand EVERYTHING.
I got to the hospital and even before I got to Grandma’s
room, several of the relatives told me that Grandma had been asking for me.
They didn’t know why, and they didn’t seem to really care beyond getting me to
her. I went to her bedside and took her hand, kissed her cheek and told her, “Grandma,
it’s me. I’m here.” She was so happy to see me. She seemed really excited about
something so I was eager to find out what she needed or wanted from me. Her
eyes got wide and her mouth formed an “O” before any words could come out. When
they did, they rushed out breathlessly and she said, “I saw it. I saw The
Light.” Her eyes were sparkling and filled with wonder and awe. “It is
beautiful…” she breathed. “You’ve seen it, too. I know you have. I saw it and
you saw it, too.”
This statement staggered me for several reasons. 1) Why else
would she have chosen me to share this vision of hers with except that I had,
indeed, seen it, too. 2) How did she know this about me? 3) What did it mean? I
have been doing meditation for years, after scrapping self-hypnosis for it when
I saw it as a superior exercise. In self-hypnosis, I held a conversation with
myself. In meditation, I cleared my mind and allowed it to focus on the Spirit,
accepting the sight of great and beautiful understandings that came along with
such visions. During one such middle of the prayers for clarity and comfort, I
saw, in my mind’s eye, a brilliant light that was so full of love that it
throbbed with apparent life, more than my own life was apparent. It was more
brilliant than any light I have ever seen with my eyes, seeing it in my mind
but feeling it also in my eyes. There were no words, there were no voices,
there was only a feeling of belonging to something much greater than myself. I
had shared this with no one but my husband and here was Grandma telling me that
not only had she seen it, too, but that in that moment she saw me as well. I could do nothing, in truth, but admit to
her that she was right. “I have seen it. And it IS beautiful. I am so happy for
you!” I told her. Then she added quietly, “You have to tell Bernie that he will
see it, too. Not now, but he will. Tell him that. Tell him I said for him not
to forget that he will see it.”
That was tricky. Seeing such a thing is so personal that
there is no way to convince anyone else that it was anything more than a
figment of your imagination, a deeply religious hallucination, as it were.
Having someone else, especially Grandma, to know this about me, and to be
waiting for me in particular to share it with, was humbling. It was something
else altogether when I finally left her room and had to address the many eyes
with questions about what Grandma had called me for so emphatically. I remember
there were chairs lined up against the wall in the waiting room and I felt like
I was looking down a line of expectant faces when I faced the truth, instead of
my embarrassment, and told them. After I shared this with them, there were many
expressions of what appeared to be somewhat of an awkwardness, or a question
about how Grandma and I were sharing something so unusual and what appeared to
be some reluctant doubt mixed with belief. Uncle Bernie broke the silence after
he heard the message she sent to him through me by laughing and saying, “Grandma
said I’m going to see the light, too? Well, I hope it won’t be too soon,”
meaning the sharing of a “deathbed” vision. But it was enough to make everyone
laugh and then all the eyes that had been on me went on about their own
business. Deep down, I was quite moved by this experience, seeing it as a
confirmation of a sight that can never be doubted while you are seeing it, and
is probably always questioned after it has passed.
IV
I was among a group of four people who were visitors to
Grandma’s bedside on the night she passed over. Jessica and Karen, Keith and I
were the last ones to take our turn at Grandma’s bedside. As far as I know, she
was never without someone in the family being at her bedside at all times. We
were on a death-bed vigil and it didn’t cross our minds to have her face this
alone. She earned the right to have family dote on her and we were not about to
short change her at the last minute. On that night, Grandma was slipping in and
out of consciousness and sometimes she spoke with us, other times she just lay
quietly, apparently listening as we spoke to her or with one another. Jessica
and Karen, Keith and I share a unique faith that is centered around the
Messiah, known to us in its closest rendition of the Hebrew name, Yahshua. We
were able to dispense with clashing religious beliefs because we were uniformly
in agreement on that night that Grandma needed something from us that we were
there to do for her. We were getting concerned about how she was unwilling to
depart from us, although she was ready, because she was still tied to us, the
family. She gave us requests to look out especially for Julie Anne, whom she
worried about because of their close bonds and Julie’s tenderest of hearts
towards her in a way that would leave her vulnerable in Grandma’s absence. She
asked us to be kind to our Uncle Bernie. She told us to try to hold the family
together and put aside our disagreements. She didn’t do it all at once, seeming
exhausted and in and out of clarity at times. We couldn’t always understand
what she was saying. I remember more than once one of us putting an ear right
up to her mouth to make out her words.
We decided she needed prayers to help her spirit be at peace
with leaving. We felt we needed to help her be alright with going, with leaving
behind the family that she spent most of her life being responsible for and
loving deeply. So, we did. We surrounded her bed, took hands, and began to pray
in earnest for her to be freed from her suffering and for her to be escorted by
the Angelic Host as she traveled from body to after-life. We told her
apparently sleeping self that her family wanted her to be free to leave and
that we would not want her restrained a single moment more than was necessary,
having earned a heavenly life, in all of our opinions. We told her we were ready and that she would
always be remembered and would always be loved. We thanked her again and again
for the many loving ways in which she supported us all. She had a way of making
each of us feel uniquely wonderful, accepted and loved. We may have decided to pray until we saw her
leave with our own eyes, when she woke up again, and spoke again. Her last time
to us.
“I see Ralph, and he is as handsome a “dandy” as the day I
met him.” We looked at each other, wondering what this new turn would mean. “He
is here right now and he told me he has waited for me long enough, it is time
to come home.” She even laughed, although now her eyes were closed again and we
weren’t even sure she knew we were still in the room. If not, who was she
talking to then? We told her, “Go to him, Grandma. We love you.” We were all
crying now, knowing something was different about the moment, but she was still
breathing peacefully. We were took hands again, without even discussing it, and
started to sing “Kumbayah” over and over, more and more quietly each time until
we had stopped. We stood looking first at each other, then at Grandma,
wondering what to do next. I don’t know how long we all stood there, all four
of us crying quietly and holding hands until it just seemed like the time to
go.
We didn’t believe she would really go if we stayed there.
Grandpa was there for her, to her, and to us, too. We each kissed her on the
face, held her hands, stroked her hair and kept telling her “We love you,
Grandma. Thank you for everything. We will be alright now. “ When we finally
let go of each other’s hands, we hugged each other (group hugs are great for
such occasions). We had to remind ourselves to go several times, and eventually
we did, looking back to a smiling, sleeping Grandma, on the threshold of her
transition to the “after life.” We were not surprised when the phone call came a
little later to tell us that she had passed peacefully in her sleep. It was a life changing experience, but I
cannot tell you how or why. I just know that it was the way it was supposed to
be, so that even in my grief and my selfish wish that she be with us still, I
could do nothing but accept it. Such is life and death.
About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855
About the Author: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/nancy-bell/30/231/855
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