Flowers on Her Table

My grandmother didn't adopt my mother until she was 40 years old. She was able to conceive my aunt 9 years before that, but a biological second child was not in the cards for my grandparents.

In the 1940's, my grandmother had only 2 children, and my mother blessed them with a completed family after my grandmother was 40 years old. Sounds an awful lot like 2014. My grandmother has always been ahead of her time.

She was a nurse. My grandfather, a pediatrician. They worked together around the world while my grandfather was stationed in Germany during the war, eventually settling for a time in LaJolla, California and remaining in Southern California.

My grandfather suddenly passed from a heart attack at age 55. My grandmother never remarried. She threw her life into volunteer nursing, heading every important auxiliary board and social committee that existed around her. Around 90 years old, she gave a speech for the new auxiliary president comparing nursing of the past and the present. She interviewed me for material on current student nursing, as I followed in her footsteps and studied nursing myself. Our blood may not have matching DNA, but our hearts beat to the same rhythm.

As a nurse she witnessed health and illness, life and death. An independent woman of her time, not wanting to be a burden on anyone, she made the decision to stop driving at 80 years old, and admitted herself into an assisted care facility soon after. She would take care of herself.

Once she was settled, I remember our countless conversations over a cold drink, cheese, crackers, sour cream herring, and See's candy, how she was ready to go, and she wished for a quick stroke in the middle of the night while sleeping.

And every year after that, she knew it would be her last. "I don't have much time," she'd say.

I eventually moved from California to Alberta. My visits with Grammy now included extra visitors, my husband and eventually our first little girl, and were shortened from bi-weekly half days to a couple of hours, once a year. No longer would I take her to the bank, go grocery shopping, or accompany her on her everyday walks around the blocks with her beloved Cindy-dog, who had the worst garbage breath. Grandma would take with us a paper bag and a metal shovel, with a proud little grin as I made disgusting face at her, trying not to laugh. We'd go to the cutting garden and pick flowers for her card table. I loved to pick the fluorescent pink roses that glowed orange near the stem. They were the prettiest and needed to be on Grandma's table.

No longer did I cut flowers, but quickly drove by the garden to show Andrew where I did that once, before we left to fit in whatever else we could in our visit before returning home.

On the visit she met Abby, I cried. I ugly cried so hard when we said goodbye. Grandma cried. I hardly ever saw her cry. I saw her cry when they buried my mother. I saw her cry when I begged her to go see Mom's mausoleum stone because I thought she wanted to go and was just being independent and strong like she always was. The fact is, she told me after that she didn't want her to remember my mom like that. So I hope she understands why I'm not visiting this weekend, or why I haven't phoned her in over 10 months.

I cried because I was sure that was goodbye for good.

See, Grandma hasn't died quickly and peacefully from a quiet stoke in the night. Her strong, brave, well loved (she was the one who knew everyone, everywhere, and they always had a nice story to tell me about her) heart keeps going. On and on. Next week, she will turn the calendar for the 106th time.

And then when I was pregnant with Penny, I met my new grandma. This grandma loved me just the same. She had the same stories she grew up with. But this time, she asked the same questions of me, over and over again. She was repeatedly both surprised and pleased that I was carrying another great grand-baby. She said goodbye 20 times in 20 minutes, and begged for me to stay just 5 minutes more, begged me the entire 20 minutes because she had forgotten she said she wanted another 5 minutes. This grandma told me how she loved going on walks, and taking me to the movies, 8 times during our 20 minute goodbye. This grandma wasn't forgetting us. This grandma was remembering us, but she was giving information of the past, not remembering our present. Life was no longer living. Life was done being lived and was now stuck on repeat before skipping to the end. This was surely the goodbye.

But then she kept breathing.

So I called her on her birthday last year when Penny was 4 months old. I couldn't wait to tell her how the day-to-day as a mother with two beautiful children was the happiest I'd ever been in my life. I couldn't tell her. I couldn't say anything because she couldn't hear me.

I hung up on her mid-sentence.

She was handed the phone, left on her own, and then she couldn't hear me. Everything I said, she asked what I was saying. I couldn't communicate to her that we should hang up. So I hung up. That was the last time I spoke with her.

Heartbroken. That grandma is gone.

Periodically my aunt updates me with her declining health status.

I haven't spoken with her in 10 months. My aunt hasn't emailed in about 4 months.

Last week I got a strong impression that I needed to go to the temple. I thought of my Grandma. When I was finally there last night, I wrote my sweet grandmother's name on the prayer roll. I prayed to Heavenly Father to please give my grandmother peace. Please bless her with comfort. Please, please, please give this woman what she wants. She's given her life in service and volunteer work, a faithful member of her Congregational Church, a loving, mothering, beautiful woman who deserves rest.

And the flowers that I had sent for her birthday--pink azaleas, her favourite--from her local florist, arrived this morning...curiously one week earlier than I scheduled them to.

And this morning, as per my aunt's email, she refused her medication, food, and water.

I can't help but think that through my faithfulness to attend the temple, and to do God's work, I was able to serve her, like she's always served everyone else, with a strong side of educating them to help themselves!

I was able to ask for her peace when she cannot.

I was able to put flowers on her table for the last time.