My Mema, My Best Friend

This post discusses death and grief. If you are in a tender place right now, please proceed mindfully, or skip this one if it’s too much. 

I have struggled with how to return to this space after my mom’s passing on July 31. In the first few weeks, the intensity of the grief left me feeling deeply exhausted and completely overwhelmed. I felt there was so much inside of me that I want to process but writing was impossible. At the six-week mark, we had a celebration of life for my mom with her community in Florida.

It was a special gathering. I wrote and delivered a eulogy and my sweet Finn even decided to take the mic and share some words about his Meme. I wore one of my mom’s dresses (of course it had birds on it). My dad and I scattered her ashes in the gulf that evening. I felt a sense of peace and closure, like I could move forward from the immediate survival stages of grief and into a place of processing, honoring and remembering.

We arrived home from Florida on Monday, September 14. That Thursday the stars aligned (I’d like to think with little help from my mom) and I went through an expedited approval with the Golden Retriever Rescue Club of Charlotte to become an emergency foster for a bonded pair of eight-year-old golden retriever sisters. They were being surrendered by their owners after spending their lives as breeder dogs and mostly living outside and in crates.

The girls came to me on Saturday evening and life became a blur of getting them settled in and starting their rehabilitation process. Finn instantly fell in love and it felt so wonderful to have a house full of golden girls again. (Benji has been the most gracious host. So proud of him.)

One week later, my world came crashing down…again. It was a beautiful, sunny Saturday afternoon. We had just gotten home from Finn’s soccer game and getting ready to turn on the UGA football game. We were outside playing with the dogs in the backyard. When I came inside, I had missed calls and texts from my dad to call as soon as I got the message. My heart sank. I knew it wasn’t good. I have so much anxiety from the last few years that if everything is okay we kind of have an unwritten rule that my dad always says so when leaving messages or asking me to call.

I called and my dad told me that my grandmother had a massive stroke. He went down for his daily visit to bring their golden Beau to hang out with her for the afternoon (that had become their routine) and found her in her chair. She was unable to speak as they waited for EMS but the hand she could move was patting Beau. This was devastating news and all I could think was that we had just seen her less than two weeks ago (and I felt a flood of relief that we had just seen her).

I was the last one to speak with my grandmother. I called her around 7p on Friday evening and we chatted for about 35 minutes while I prepped dinner. I told her all about the dogs and our plans for the weekend. I told her I loved her when we got off the phone. She said, “I love you too, honey.”

She was taken by ambulance to Sacred Heart Hospital in Pensacola because they have Northwest Florida’s only nationally certified stroke center. Sadly, they were not able to do anything to reverse the stroke and the damage it had caused was permanent. She had a left side ischemic stroke that left her with no movement in the right side of her body and the inability to speak or pass a swallow test. The doctors said the first 48 hours can be indicative of the body’s capacity to heal. My grandmother did not show any positive changes in her scans or evaluations in that time frame.

On Monday, September 28 I dropped Finn off at school and went to the airport. I flew directly to Pensacola to join my dad at the hospital to be with my grandmother. I arrived shortly after noon and when I walked into her hospital room, her eyes absolutely lit up. She 100% knew that I was there. I asked if she wanted to see pictures of Finn and she shook her head yes. I talked to her and gave her lots of love until she fell back asleep.

My dad and I had medical power of attorney for my grandmother, and she also had a very specific living will that stated she did not want life-extending measures if they didn’t result in a quality of life that allowed for independent living and thinking. After speaking with specialists and hearing the neuro report, we made the heartbreaking decision to move her to inpatient hospice. Rehabilitation from a stroke of her magnitude was not possible at her age, and she would never want to be kept alive in a facility with feeding tubes while only able to lie there and not speak. Around this time, my aunt and cousin arrived too. My grandmother woke up and was definitely aware of who was there. This was probably the most active we saw her before her passing.

I was able to walk alongside her bed as they transferred her down to the hospice unit. While we were waiting for the elevator, she stroked my hand with her thumb and I know she tried to say I love you.

Once we got to the hospice unit, she was whisked away to get settled in and we were directed to wait in the family room. When we were able to see her, they had her all cleaned up and had started morphine so she was sleeping soundly. Everyone said their goodbyes for the night and I stayed with her.

I can’t even begin to count the number of sleepovers my grandmother and I have had in my life. And I am so, so very grateful that I got to spend her last night on earth with her. The hospice unit was a much more relaxing environment than her original floor. She wasn’t hooked up to any machines, she just slept peacefully. Around 11:30p her housekeeper (who had become a dear friend) came in to say goodbye to her and hearing her talk to my grandmother nearly broke me. The things she said about the impact my grandmother had on her life will stay with me for my whole life.

I slept in bits and pieces, waking up anytime her nurses would come in to chat with them. I got up for good around 5:30a. I got dressed for the day, got a cup of coffee from the family room and had the most peaceful, quiet morning sitting with my grandmother as the sun rose. My dad, aunt and cousin all arrived mid morning and we took turns sitting at her bedside. Again, she mostly slept.

The doctors and nurses were unable to tell us how long my grandmother had. Everyone kept commenting on how healthy she was going into the stroke. Her body was so strong. They thought she might hold on a few days but said it could be as soon as the next day. She took a turn around 1p and things felt very different. I knew from sitting with my mom as she died that it likely wouldn’t be the next day.

A few hours before she died, my grandmother had some short windows of semi-consciousness. I was holding her hand and again, she started stroking my hand with her thumb. I kept telling her how much Finn and I loved her. That she and Finn were my favorite humans ever (a long-time joke between us all but also true) and promised her that I would still talk to her every day. I told her it was okay to go, we would be okay.

She then settled into a rhythm of breathing that was shallow with occasional long pauses in between. I knew that one of those pauses would be the last one. Just a few minutes before her last breath, she opened her eyes for the first time in hours. Her gaze was unfocused but I KNOW some part of her could see me. I watched two tears slide down her cheeks. I called my dad and aunt over and encouraged them to talk to her. We all told her we were there and how much we loved her. She closed her eyes, took a few more breaths and died at 5:45p.

It absolutely wrecked me. My grandmother was my person. She was my best friend. I can’t imagine having been anywhere other than by her side as she died but sitting with my mother and grandmother, the two most important women in my life, as they died in a span of less than two months was unfathomable. It left me feeling on shaky ground, unmoored, so deeply sad.

I gave my grandmother one last kiss and walked out of her room with my dad. We drove back to Fort Walton Beach and for the first time in 10 years, my grandmother wasn’t there. I couldn’t bear to go into her condo so I stayed with my dad. That meant sleeping in my mom’s bedroom for the first time since we cleaned it out which was a whole other thing to navigate emotionally.

I asked my dad if he’d be okay if I took the first flight out in the morning back to Charlotte and he encouraged me to go. I just couldn’t stay there. After my mom’s death, my dad spent a ton of time sitting with my grandmother (his mother). They had really deep conversations about loss, grief and death. She told him, “you’re going to be okay when I go.” And he is firmly holding onto that. My heart breaks for my dad as he has to go through all of this again. The loss and the grief but also the paperwork, the phone calls, the logistics, the clearing out. It’s a tremendous task.

I got up at 4:15a and accompanied my dad on his morning mile walk with Beau. I showered and we headed to the airport for my 7:15a flight. I was dreading telling Finn. He and my grandmother shared a bond that will forever be one of the things I cherish most in life. Getting to build that bond with my grandmother and then watch my son do the same was a tremendous gift. I know we were in Florida all the time, but I thank God for every single trip and every single memory. It seemed like Mema was going to live forever but I knew she wouldn’t. I had so much anticipatory grief and anxiety over all of this.

For Finn’s privacy, I want to keep his grief journey private but this has all been a lot for him. He’s old enough to understand the finality of death and he’s deeply empathic so he’s struggled witnessing my grief. We talk all the time about our feelings, that it’s okay to be sad and that we can be sad and still have happy times and happy memories.

It’s been one week today since my grandmother died. I miss her so much. She was a huge part of my life and we talked almost every single day of my adult life. I’m holding up that promise I made in the hospital to still talk to her every day but there’s a huge hole where her presence always was. I am back to work and that’s helpful. Taking care of the dogs is helpful. My sweet nieces are coming to visit this weekend and I think we all need to be together.

Lastly, I want to thank all of you for everything. I’ve shared about my life and family online since 2010. So many were rooting my mom on and felt like you knew Mema. Finn and I were so lucky to have them both. It feels deeply personal to share all of this but I have always shared through the highs and lows of life and death is unfortunately a very real part of life. We have felt so supported and uplifted these last few months. Please know that I’ve read every email, comment and text and your words have brought tremendous comfort in a very hard season.

My love to all. xx
Jen