Today is the first official day that I have lived in Putnam
County, Indiana since I left for my sophomore year in college. Sure, I have come back from time to time, but
my address was always in another town.
In fact, I came back so much that some people probably thought that I
never left.
My husband started the job that relocated us back home
today, and I worked from my parent’s house while we are waiting for the movers
to get all of our stuff to the rental house.
The rental house is on a hog farm.
The house where all our stuff is currently sitting is in a swanky suburb
of Cleveland. There is bound to be some
interesting events happen in this transition, and I hope to document them.
Today, for example, one of the most popular people in this
whole county passed away. She was a WW2
veteran, a school nurse, politician, farm wife and promoter of 4-H, VFW member,
Baptist church member, and basically someone who you knew if you had lived in
the county more than a week. She is my
grandmother, Helen Reasor Hurst. This woman was my second mother, as she lived
next to my parents and served as default caregiver for my sister and me when my
parents were at work. She was fiercely
independent and had a spirit of adventure, both traits that I believe she
passed on to me. There have been many
times in my life where I was unknown to the person I was talking to until I
identified myself as Helen’s granddaughter.
She was a living legend, and now… a legend.
I was hoping that she would live for a few more years and
get to see me have another child, to see my son (named after her father) grow
up and go to school, and see my husband and I build a home and grow the roots
that we had in this area. I was looking
forward to stopping by her house everyday and seeing if she wanted to go get an
ice cream or needed groceries. I wanted
to continue to pick her brain for information about her past. I suppose that having almost 35 years with
your grandmother is more than most people get, especially considering that she
was 60 when I was born. She would always
say to “come visit me sometime” or to “hurry back” when I was leaving to go
back to my home. Ironically enough, now
that I am back for good, she will be the one that is gone.
My heart aches for my mother, who I know is going to always
wonder if she made the right call in taking grandma off of the breathing
machine. The pain that I saw in my
grandmother’s eyes this morning and the amount of effort that it was taking for
her to even breathe were evidence of the suffering that she had endured for the
past few days. There was no hope of
healing, only prolonged suffering. My
mother made the right call. I pray that,
if I am ever in the same situation, that I will make the right decision for my
parents.
There are a few precious moments in the past few days and
even today that I will remember always.
I leaned over and told my grandma that I loved her and am thankful for
all that she had done for me, to which she replied, “I love you and I can’t help
it.” About an hour before she died, I kissed
her, wiped a tear from her closed eyes and told her it was going to be
alright. She opened her eyes to see me
and just stared at my smiling face, as I was trying to tell her how happy I was
to be her granddaughter through eye contact.
As she closed her eyes, my aunt arrived and my cousin and I left the
room so that my aunt and mother could be with their mom as she passed. We both recognized that we are very much a
product of the life of our grandmother, who raised two very strong women in our
mothers.
I go to bed tonight with a heavy heart, but also with a
thankful one for the opportunity to live this life with the family that I have.
No comments:
Post a Comment