on my last day I want a party and a parade...

My grandmother was a a huge part of my life, I grew up at her knee and there isn't a week that passes that I don't think of her.I was also with her for her last days and hours on this earth; As old as she was {in her mid 90's } she was rather sharp for an old gal but as the end drew her moments of clarity became less and less frequent until the moment when God called her home. I hold on to those moments as special possibly because I didn't get those moments with my Dad who died in the hospital or my children who perished on the side of a highway in the middle of the night. They open up so many questions for me about life and death and faith...

Have you ever imagined what your last moments on this earth would be like? I imagine God willing I'd be old laying in bed surrounded by all the people who love me- who I love, or some such scenario. Maybe drifting off to a peaceful death in sleep....

When I last saw my grandmother just hours before she passed this is what she told me.  Let me just say this; I wish truly I could  do this story justice, that I could express more eloquently her words, to paint for you a picture of the glint in her eye and the delight in her voice as she told me what I'm going to tell you now. 

When I entered her room she was sitting in her hospital bed straight up, her eyes clear and not the least bit cloudy or confused as they had been. She looked me in the eye saying in a slow but steady voice, "what a lovely party last night"  then she raised her right hand and swept it from left to right across the room showing me what she believed to be party decorations from the previous night.

She looked so darn happy in fact I saw more emotion than I'd seen in a long long time on her face. "A party?"
I asked playing along not wanting to break her mood." Look at the decorations, aren't they beautiful?" she repeated.
" Daddy {my Popa} was here, and The Moores and The Lynches {both old family friends from Brooklyn and others to many to name} were here.
Contented with her memory of the night before she leaned  back in the bed and said,  "it was so much fun and there was music and dancing."

This gave me a few moments to think, my grandmother was telling me she attended a party the night before and every single person she mentioned that attended  was dead except her! My grandmother saw all those people in her bedroom in the house she lived in since 1960, in the same room my grandfather died in when I was six. Tears pricked the back of my eyes and I was overcome with emotion. At that moment I became overwhelmed with the feeling that my grandmother would not live much longer that that day would be her last day.

Then she calmly turns to me and said.
"Do you hear it?"
"Do you hear the parade?" "I so love a parade, don't you?" I nodded as I watched her as her face transform before my eyes and I saw joy.  She strained to here her parade drummers drumming and horns blowing and she smiled and tapped her hands to the beat of the music, her music.

I've seen my share of death. I cry, I mourn but I always always always try to celebrate the life of the person who died. No matter how painful I remember and then I celebrate their life. I remember.

Was there a parade? No
Did Popa and those old friends come to take her Home?
I'd love love love the thought that they may have.

She died three hours later.

I've heard accounts about a white light. On the day I die I'm thinking I want a party and a parade, just like Nana.

,

it's never fun in the stirrups

As you may know before I was a mother I was a step-mother. The kids, two girls and a boy little and so in need of love and attention and me such a nurturing spirit we were a match made in heaven. Life together had it's challenges but we had a good life together and made a family. We blended together and chose to love one another. So you might ask what in the world does this have to do with the gynecologist?  Well, every time I went to the gynecologist the girl/nurse would ask me "how many children do you have?" {meaning pregnancies} And I would respond {two} I was blessed to have never miscarried nor did I ever  terminate a pregnancy but I always felt terrible that I could't claim them felt disloyal somehow. I would then rush to say, I have three other children that I'm raising as my own, because they were SO important to me. Love and youth makes  us do funny things.

Years and years later I had moved down here to Virginia and I fell into the routine of using my regular Internist for my "female needs" but time and peri-menopause came a callin and I needed to find a gynecologist. I'll spare you all the details but test were done, problems I had a few and after a few years of going to him he recommended I have a procedure. Surgical in nature but not a biggie. The timing however was a biggie since it was about eight months after the kids accident. Now remember the question I mentioned above, well this doctor had an additional question. One, how many kids do you have? Two, how many of your children are living? 

So I go in and have all the test for the procedure, check up, biopsy, blood test we discuss everything. When he suggested it I talked to my regular doctor, my neurologist to see if it would impact my migraines and at the time I was in therapy so naturally we discussed it as well. I was not lacking for medical advise or was I impaired in anyway from making my own medical decisions, this point is important to the story.

I'm sitting there in the gyno's office under the half sheet, he's reviewing my pre-op tests and all of the sudden he freezes. Did you ever play freeze tag when you were a kid? Because that's what he reminded me of, the man just froze!  Then he looks up at my half naked covered with a paper sheet body and says. "Last time you were here you had two living children now you have one" and those words hang in the air. Part statement almost question, I wasn't biting however so then he asked. "May I ask what happened?" So I tell him that Gretchen and Eric were killed when his car was disabled on the highway and she went to pick him up, then a truck ran them over. Talking about this was difficult still so I don't give many details. His response was this {and I shit you not and he did this all while scribbling on his prescription pad} "that must have been rough." Five words, no eye contact, then he literally threw a prescription at me. Shocked I was shocked, I took this to mean that he was effectively cancelling my procedure.  Then he went on to say briskly   "try these pills and I'll see you in three months" and he walked out of the office leaving me half naked and shaking in shock on the exam table.

I wobbled off that exam table shaking like a leaf, got dressed then stumbled out of that office to the car where Bill was waiting. I'm sure it's no shock to any of you reading this post that I never filled that prescription. I never did go back to him either, no trust and it was beyond repair. I went out and found a great woman doctor instead!

I can only speculate why he did what he did.
Here's a few of my favorites made up ones:


1. He's a douche bag with the bedside manor of a douche bag!
2. He had some type of personal history & I brought up painful memories for him so he ran. {my therapist speculated he might have had some type of  painful history} I'm adding this because I love my former  therapist; nice guy and he'd want me to.
3. He wasn't willing to take the chance that I might be having difficulties with my mourning process that would interfere with my decision making but he didn't have the ornaments { that's balls} to speak openly with me about it.
4. He was just trying to make money on this new procedure and  unknowingly picked a vulnerable person { mourning mother}
5. He's a dirt bag who is unable to really connect with his patients.
6. He didn't tell me the whole truth and the pills would have been enough {fyi, my new gyno gave me pills}

Have you ever had a professional or personal relationship that has just left you scratching you head thinking what in the holy heck just happened here?

Linking up with Things I Can't Shell,  Thanks Shell !