Let me make this perfectly clear, I do NOT want my grandmother to die. I love my grandmother and wish that she was not in the state she is right now.
What I do want is for family to quit fighting and stop taking advantage of others. I want words to quit being twisted and people to realize how stupid they act. I want peace to come to this family. And the only way I see that peace can be found is if the subject that everyone is fighting over vanishes.
I’m tired of my mom getting plowed over because she thinks the best way to resolve conflict is to try not to rock the boat. Brain cancer is the wave right now in our family ocean. I’m tired of other people saying whatever is on their hearts and getting noticed, but when my family tries to stick up for itself, we’re wrong.
Maybe I am in the wrong for saying anything. To me, saying nothing was hurting more. No one knows how you feel until you tell them. They can guess and make assumptions about whether you’re upset or not, but they will never really know until the words come out of your mouth. I do not have this perfect. I have been working on this for a little under three years. Justin reminds me on a regular basis that I don’t voice my opinion or feelings. More often than not, I hold everything in until I blow up. I know this. That’s probably why I could not handle nothing being said any longer.
I chose “whatever” because I knew that word by itself can express many different feelings. And that’s what needed to be expressed- feeling. The feeling that I am so frustrated with people telling me what should or could be done and people not doing it. Instead they make excuses in a way that makes them look “poor” and they have not had anytime to do “…”
I know I have caused this recent tension in my family. Seems like I’m pretty good at that. When I see something’s wrong it bothers me. It bothers me that much more that there are ways to solve these problems, but everyone is too “busy” to do anything. If something has an answer (whether that answer is a final answer or not), then why should we keep searching for an answer and keep whining about needing an answer to the problem.
If you don’t think I have a heart at this point, you should know that I am shaking as I am typing this.
I know there are plenty of people who have gone through hard family times too. My reason for writing this is to make it clear how I feel and what I feel. My reason is mainly because the word is so powerful, but only if it is understood.
My grandmother is not who she is. My family is not who they are. I am not who I am. I firmly believe that cancer is Satan’s tool. Only through the grace and mercy and trust in God can anybody pull through what cancer does to a person and the other people involved.
My grandmother sits on the couch or recliner all day. She has a schedule that denotes when to feed her, when to give medications to her, when to check her blood sugar, when to give her shots, when to check her blood pressure, and when to feed her. She doses in and out of sleep throughout the day. The television stays on all day. Sometimes it stays on the same channel all day. The paper gets read by her about five times a day. She barely drinks anything, but would eat a 3-foot sub if you set it in front of her. Her face, arm, and hand is bruised from a fall she had on New Year’s. Her bones on her arms and legs can be seen from of the weight and muscle she is losing. She rarely talks, unless she has old friends come to visit. She is able to talk a lot about old memories and growing up on a farm. She can agree with you if you ask her a question, but if it is not a yes or no question, all she can say is that she doesn’t know. Sometimes she laughs because she just doesn’t know something. You can see in her eyes that she’s confused. She doesn’t want any of us to know that she feels bad. She tells me stuff and she tells me she’s sorry for the mess she’s in, but she doesn’t want me to tell anyone else. Sometimes she thinks that we’re out to get her. She thinks that we have secrets that we keep from her. She thinks I know where someone else hid the candy and she gets mad because I tell her “I don’t know where it is” or “I haven’t seen it.” She’ll ask the same question three different times during the day, it’s like that person gets stuck on her mind that day. Every time she wakes up from one of her naps, she’s someone new. She may be nice; she may be angry; she may be unable to move without a walker; she may be able to literally run across the room to see what the weather is doing. Because of where the cancer is in her brain, she doesn’t feel pain. The pain that she does feel is knowing that there is a lot that she cannot remember and she cannot make decisions. I ask her what she wants for lunch and I give her two choices and she cannot pick one or the other. I don’t think she’s trying to be polite, I think her brain cannot literally not make a choice. She thinks there is nothing wrong with her and that the radiation cleaned away all the cancer. About a month ago she was talking about getting in her car and going to the grocery by herself. This kind of talk has stopped now. She usually doesn’t talk much now when someone is watching her, I think she knows it’s getting worse.
My family that lives close by takes turns staying with my grandmother, so she has at least one person with her at all times. Because of my grandmother’s recent history of falling, short term memory loss, and not taking very good care of herself, someone is always with her. (After living by herself for however many years, at one time she thought that we were trying to take everything she had and we were just staying with her so she couldn’t do anything). I think if anyone in my family says they are hopeful, they are lying. They are lying if they say they are enjoying this time with her. Some of my family wishes they could be here with her. I wish that I could remember her without seeing how she has declined. The only reason I am glad that I can watch my grandmother is that I know by me staying with her someone else has an opportunity to not be with her. Someone else has an opportunity to see something beautiful. My grandmother is not beautiful right now. She is only beautiful because of the memories I have of her.
The only reason I am hopeful is I am hopeful that she will die. I don’t know when or how, but like the rest of us normal humans, she will die. And when she does I will know that she will have peace. She will not have to worry about not knowing something. She will be with Jesus. That is my hope. She will be with Jesus and she will not be in any pain. She will have the hair and the strength and the knowledge and the health that she always wanted and then some. She will have more than she needs.
Me and my family will miss MomT, but I will cry tears of joy for the peace that she’ll have. This earth is a death trap and I see MomT as being stuck, bruised and full of despair because she is stuck. She’s always wanted to be loved and surrounded by a bunch of people. I know that when she gets to heaven she will be shown love by more people than she has ever thought possible.
If nothing good comes from my grandmother’s brain cancer, I have learned this: When I die, don’t spend money on a nice comfy box that I can sleep in. Spend the money on someone who needs a bed and food. My goal is to die without my stuff. Jesus will have everything I need. I will not need my old body because I will be given a new body.
There are some people, including my family, who will think that I should not have written any of this. There are people who think this is morbid and some things are better left unsaid. And to them I say, If you have something to say, say it now. Not saying anything will lead to the destruction of yourself and others.
**What I have written is the truth. Nothing has been exaggerated to make this seem more theatrical or for you to pity me. But through this I hope that this impacts the way you think about death. I also hope that this will bring comfort to anyone who is feeling or has ever felt this way, to know that they are not alone. And if I am the only one, then so be it. I wish for no one to feel how I feel. Neither do I wish for any one to go through the things my grandmother and family have gone through.
