"Funerals aren’t for the dead. They’re for the living. They’re to help us survive when it feels like the grief might just kill us."-private practice
Just because I don't talk about you as much, doesn't mean I don't think about you, doesn't mean you were not a significant part of my life, does not mean I loved you any less. It's your birthday today, and you're smiling down on us, atleast I hope so. Maybe if I had visited more, called you more...you would have remembered me. I still remember the last time I saw you. It was on your birthday, six years ago, on a Saturday as well. Looking back, I am not quite sure I was ready for it, mentally and emotionally prepared. I mean, I knew you had dementia, I knew it might have taken you awhile to remember me, but I didn't think it would go the way it did.
I walked in to the nursing home, (that you resided for the last three years of your life, after already living one year in the rest home across the street, horrible places, not the worse because in previous jobs, I visited some pretty horrible living conditions in rest homes/nursing homes) asked for your room, because sadly I don't remember visiting you in the nursing home, walked up to your room, and you were lying in bed, looking skinnier and more out of it (for lack of better terms) than I ever remembered in the rest home. Dementia: a loss of brain function that occurs with certain diseases. It affects memory, thinking, language, judgment, and behavior. a degenerative disease, changes in the brain that are causing the dementia cannot be stopped or turned back. The disease had certainly taken its toll on you in just four short years. A nurse was in the room too. She was helping you into the wheelchair, I'm assuming because you had a visitor, and by the looks of it you were sleeping awhile. You had a single balloon tied to the wheelchair, and the nurse kept saying "you have a visitor, it's your birthday." The nurse left. I stayed for about an hour or so. The first half of my visit, I spent telling you who I was, "Hi Nonna, it's Lianne, your granddaughter." I remember the wheelchair at the end of the bed, you were rolling gently back and forth in it, as it was not locked into place. I crouched down in front of it so you could see me better. If I remember correctly, your eyes weren't open so bright. I don't really remember them being so open for long periods of time. The last half of my visit, I kept trying to tell you why I was there visiting, "It's your birthday Nonna, happy birthday!" It was probably one of the saddest things I've seen, and that's coming from seeing my aunt lying in her hospital bed in the bedroom of her own home, hooked up to machines, days before her death. I had no idea just a short four months later, you would pass too. June 9, 2005.
I remember a lot more than sometimes I would like to remember, but I guess that's just how it works, the good with the bad. I don't get sad when I think of you like when I think of Sittoo or Auntie or Linds...and I am sorry. It does not mean I cried any less when you passed or loved you any less when you were alive. To me, you were gone before you left this Earth. As much as I can't stand having this crazy good memory, I would hate to have the last four years of my life taken from me by such a horrible disease. If you don't have your memory, if you don't remember the places you've been, people you've met, your family you loved, then what is left? Laying mindless in bed day after day, with rotating staff in a place that smells like the people in it. I can't imagine, I can not imagine your thoughts, your feelings, your last four years. What were you thinking about? Who were you thinking about? What did you talk about with the nurses and roommates you had?
I can only hope you were thinking of those beautiful puppies you had, the great people you met and worked for, your family who loved you more than they showed it, your beach houses at the Cape....We always will have those weeks at the Cape, you sitting in your beach chair with Bella, and then Sammy lying in the sand behind you and when it was lunch time, (we always packed our lunch, couldn't miss any quality sun bathing time...maybe that's another reason why you and my mom got along so well....beach worshipers!) out came the tinfoil wrapped clam strips or other seafood leftovers and you would share them with your pups! We'll always have our visits to chinese restaurants, visits to our house for what you thought was a month long visit (only a couple of weeks), your company at the holidays with mom's side of the family, and birthday celebrations and cards filled with single dollar bills to make us laugh, smile and remember the happier times.
Our last visit might have been the saddest one of all, but it was our goodbye, and I only wished I had visited more. So I took with me that single smile you gave me in the entire hour I was there, your way of letting me know that even if it was just for a split second, you remembered me, you knew who I was. And as I said in your eulogy at a mere twenty two, may you lie forever peacefully in the sun on your beach, you and your puppies, your two true loves in this world.
Happy Birthday Nonna. I love you!
