August 31, 2003

In Your Mercy

transcribed from paper journal ...

I'm sitting here with Memere on a Sunday. I really don't care for this pen. It's storming outside and we're alone in her room. Her eyes are open a little bit, and I wonder if she can see me and if she knows so many of us are here today.

Earlier we were saying the rosary with a couple of nuns who came in and my frozen coffee got knocked all over the floor. Mortification. The third nun (my aunt) jumped up to clean the floor. My cousin with the tattoos I could see on her back through her t-shirt leaned over the bed and cried.

I have Glimpses of Grace with me and I read a few excerpts of A Ring of Endless Light when Grandfather is dying and Vicky asks him to be strong enough to let them be there with him and he says he doesn't know if he can bear their hurt.

And I wonder if she feels our hurt and if she's waiting for us to leave so it will be easier for her to let go. Or if she's waiting for anyone to get here, like my aunt and uncle. I wonder if she is in some in between place. I wonder what she sees when she closes her eyes. I wonder if, like Vicky said, it's a deep but dazzling darkness.

:::
written later, typing at home ...

The day wore on and more rosaries were said. My brothers and sister came. The bishop his own damn self came. Apparently he and my aunt are old bosom friends. A retired priest was wheeled in from a neighboring room, and he said some prayers over her, too. I ate Chex and chewy Jolly Ranchers from the vending machine.

O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fire of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those most in need of thy mercy.

We noticed late in the afternoon that her face was getting whiter and her hands and arms were getting bluer and her breathing was really slowing down. My dad arrived and we all stood around the bed, holding her hands and touching her legs and my aunt and her best friend and my parents said some prayers I didn't know and my aunt told her to go home to be with Jesus and asked Mary to take her home. She said we were all going to be okay and that she had been a wonderful sister and daughter and mother and grandmother and great-grandmother and friend. And that she had lived a long and wonderful life and taught and touched so many people. And that she had taught us all well and it was okay to go and be with her parents and siblings and that my dad's parents would be waiting for her, too. "And T-Jacques," I added, weeping. Her old brown miniature poodle.

And they said for the one millionth time of the day a prayer that they said was her favorite, and I'm not sure if this was it, but I think it was:

Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, we fly to you, O Virgin of virgins, our Mother. To you we come; before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the word incarnate, despise not our petitions, but in your mercy, hear and answer us. Amen.

And when they repeated this prayer over and over through the day, "before you we stand, sinful and sorrowful," all I could think of was Joni Mitchell singing, "I'm so hard to handle, I'm selfish, and I'm sad." And I knew the words to her song a lot better, and even pondered that Memere and I were similar in being somewhat hard to handle, selfish, and sad, but I still liked somehow the words they were saying. They reminded me of The Secret Life of Bees, these words to Mary, whom my grandmother loved a whole lot, maybe because both of their lives were kind of fucked up.

And really I don't know how these words came out of my aunt's mouth, these soothing words of comfort and love, but they did, and we all told her we loved her and I told her, "We'll always remember you and talk about you, forever," and I thanked her for teaching me how to make peanut butter fudge, and my dad thanked her for being a great mother-in-law as he gently brushed her hair, and I guess my grandmother heard us, and had heard us throughout the day when we each spent a few minutes alone with her, whispering words no one could hear but the two of us, because her breath continued to slow and slow and slow. And you could just tell that she wasn't fighting it anymore.

And the very saddest moment of the day was when my mom's friend whose husband lives at the nursing home suddenly left the bedside and went out for the nurse, and we looked up to see her leave but kept standing around holding on to various limbs of my grandmother, and the nurse came in and checked for her pulse and said she didn't have any vitals, and my mom just looked up from her quiet weeping and was seized with this look of panic that I've never seen cross her face, "What do you mean, she's really gone?!?" And a cry came out of her like I've never heard. "But she's still breathing a little bit!" And really, it looked to me also like she was, but I guess she wasn't. And then a few seconds later she was totally still. And we all just kind of stood there. And my mom said, "It's so hard to believe that she is gone. She was so formidable ..." And I think she said what we all felt. And there was much weeping and wailing and embracing and I think I snotted mightily all over my dad's t-shirt. And I still can't believe that I was holding my grandmother's hand when one minute she was breathing and the next minute she wasn't.

And of course there was some more praying.

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May their souls and all the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

And then we packed up what little was left in her room and roamed the halls on our cell phones, calling people. And it looks like the funeral will not be until Friday or Saturday and I had to call M. and tell her I might not be able to go to her wedding, which I wept about heartily earlier in the day upon the realization. And my aunt told me that I was like my grandmother, independent and brilliant. And that made me cry some more. Basically, there was much sobbing but it was okay. I was immensely comforted by reading L'Engle today, and if there is any kind of faith I think I can forever subscribe to, it's the kind she describes. And I hope that my grandmother was not too afraid and that her fear of the dark in her final breaths was made bearable by faith and joy.

Whatever death involves, it will be different, a venture into the unknown, and we are all afraid of the dark. At least I am -- a fear made bearable by faith and joy.

We will all grow old, and sooner or later we will die, like the old trees in the orchard. But we have been promised that this is not the end. We have been promised life.

Madeleine L'Engle, Glimpses of Grace

memere, probably late teens

memere graduating like the brainiac she was

memere's first wedding, a double wedding with her sister

memere in a photograph she mailed to my grandfather when he was overseas in the navy

memere, secretly eloping with my grandfather at the grand canyon

Click on each picture above for larger image. More pictures to come.

And here are some more! Don't bother clicking on these; this is as big as they get.

yearbook shot

yearbook shot

Memere, Mom, and me

Memere and Me

Memere and Me

Memere and Me and a big scary pink poodle

Memere and Me at some holiday gathering

I think this was the day of my first communion. I was not looking so cute that day. I loved watching her play the piano.

I am glaring at her in countless pictures. We really butted heads when I was little.

This was one of her favorite pictures of herself in recent years.


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For more entries about my grandmother, go here, here, here, and here.