Death came and took her for the final time on October 5, 2021. This wasn't Death's first go at her. He tried to take her at least one other time and had her - for a brief time - before she was resurrected with the use of medical technology. It was a decision that she had requested, but one that haunts some of those closest to her because when she came back from the dead she was never the same again.
In my mind, Janet began her death march in the summer of 2014. Our family had just found out that we were making the first of our cross country moves and were busy preparing for what that would entail. I received news, most likely from my father, (although I cannot remember exactly who from, but he makes the most logical sense to reach out with news of this kind) that Janet was hospitalized. If you asked me what the reason for her hospitalization I could not tell you anymore. It was due to an injury or an illness - over the course of the next 7 years before her final death she was in and out of the hospital for both reasons numerous times. It was the first time I had to face the reality that my Grammie was not invincible.
As time marched on during those seven years, as more phone calls or texts arrived with news of Janet's hospitalizations, I would come and visit when I could, but between raising my own family and moving multiple times to various states there was sometimes a couple of years in between visits. I remember walking away from those visits feeling angry with God (I still believed in God at that point in my life) for being so cruel. I remember feeling angry that someone could suffer so much and that he could just let it happen. As a devout Catholic I know that my grandmother felt she had committed many sins in her life, but I watched her pay for those sins over and over and over again during that 7 year decline (and then some). I I watched from a distance this once fierce and powerful woman deteriorate into a woman I could no longer recognize. I know now that my thoughts were simplistic. That life and death is sometimes more complicated than it seems.
The last time I saw Janet alive (I believe) was July of 2013 or 2014. My whole family came out for the 4th of July to celebrate my grandfather's birthday. Grammie loved Bobby. She called him "my Bobby". She loved my kiddos too. Often, when I would have the chance to visit I would visit my grandparents alone, so it was always a treat when all 6 of us got to visit "the New York family" (as we called them) together. Grammie was her usual self. She was in her prime form and was a great hostess. We left feeling like we had a lifetime of great visits just like that one ahead of us. We didn't know it then, (how could we?), but everything would change after that visit.
I saw Grammie a small handful of times after that July event, but she was no longer alive she was merely living. Her hospitalizations and medical ailments had taken a huge toll on her. She was living because she wanted to be. Because she had asked that every medical intervention be made to keep her living, and her requests were honored, but I often wondered if the price she had to pay to keep herself here was worth it. I often wondered when the pain was going to be too much - when she would just surrender and move on from this world to whatever comes next (if anything). It seems like in order to keep herself breathing she had made a deal with the devil to sacrifice bits of herself mentally and physically until she was nothing more than skin and bones and a woman locked inside of her own mind. She had so many demons that she wrestled with while alive I wonder now if she felt like she didn't deserve the peace of death. I wonder if she made herself suffer so because she did not love herself enough to believe that she was good enough to rise up to the heaven she believed in.
The truth is, I will never know the answers to these questions.
In life, my Grammie was one of the most complicated women I know. She was so many things. She was friendly, chatty, loving, warm, kind. She was also, cold, harsh, unkind, and sometimes cruel. She could heal with her words and she could wound deeply with her words. She was completely open and honest, and she was closed off and secretive. She could chat up anybody about anything at anytime, and she could also explode on anybody at anytime for any reason.
She loved the ocean and the color purple. She loved her family fiercely. She welcomed in outsiders and treated them as her own, but if you crossed her you were out and would never be let in again. She had one of the best laughs of anybody I know, and I can still hear it although it as been many years since I have heard it in person. When she thought one of us grandkids (or years later our own kids) did something sassy she would call us 'pissers' and laugh. She called me 'lee' or 'leeshee'. She threw the best parties. (She was known for her 4th of July parties.) She was generous with her money and always helped out those in need. I think the grocery store was one of her favorite places to go because she went there nearly every day. She was the best cook I know of and cooked the most delicious food. She walked out of more restaurants for some perceived slight (bad service, bad menu, etc..) than you could ever imagine. She introduced me to Janis Joplin and Billy Joel, of which the latter became my most favorite musical artist of all time. She was opinionated and loud. She loved the New York Yankees. She was always in my corner and would fight any battle I needed to fight no questions asked. I was part of her tribe and she always protected her cubs.
Despite her periodic harshness and hurtfulness, I never doubted her love. I always knew I was special to her. There were countless ways she told me and showed me.
I took my Grammie's death pretty hard. Harder than I thought I would. I knew Death was coming for her. He had been actively seeking her out for a little over seven years, but when it actually happened, when the funeral was over, when I was back at home, I felt this deep and utter sadness. There is a hole in my life that I cannot fill up. Her absence on this earth makes me feel slightly unanchored. I know that she was lost inside of herself those last years of her life and who she was - what her made my 'Grammie' was lost to me long ago, but she was physically still here and that meant something to me. And now she is gone. I cannot seem to reconcile that fact.
I miss her. So much.
Since her death she has been in my dreams three times. One of those dreams was terrible, but the other two were beautiful. I could feel her. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I could feel who she was before all of the sickness and injuries, before she went away locked in her own mind. She was herself in her best and most beautiful perfect self in every way possible. I hope that she continues to visit me in my dreams. I love meeting her there. I don't feel incomplete in my dreams when she visits me I feel completely whole.
My hope is that my Grammie is at peace now. May her demons be slayed and may she feel the warmth of not only our love from here on earth, but may she be able to feel her own love in the heavens above that she so believed in.
