1 year later--Grandma Cora

This post was one I wrote a year ago, word for word, but more relevant today than ever.... 


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It’s been months since my last post, and now more than ever I realize the significance of the very title I chose for this blog. Broken Plateau. I started this blog because the constant that I knew became erratic. And I stopped blogging the minute my life hit a plateau. Well two days ago my plateau was once again broken. One of the most significant people in my life, my Grandma Cora, passed away at 1:12am on 1/5/11.

Just over a month ago when her diagnosis became reality my life paused for a moment. Everything around me truly had a different meaning. At that moment I forced myself to make the decision to either return to California and visit her while she is living, or pay my respects at her funeral after she is gone. I decided that when faced with life or death, to always take life. I arrived at LAX at 5:00am two days after that heartbreaking phone call. Around 9:00am I made my way to Grandma’s house to begin my visit. I snuck past her sleeping body, as I made my way to the restroom, and couldn’t quite digest the fact that she was slowly fading away when in reality, right in front of me, she looked no different than the last time I saw her. When she woke up she didn’t even notice me in the room until Stephanie said “Look who came to see you” For those three seconds that she unrecognizably stared at me with nothing in her expression, my heart sank. It could have taken 10 hours and I would have been ok, but three seconds was all she needed to focus and see who was standing in front of her. A single tear rolled down her left cheek as she said “Why did you come?” I choked out “To visit you.” And her next sentence, two words, were filled with pure emotion and genuine truth “Thank You.” Two sentences from my Grandma and my trip to visit was complete. Right then I knew that I had made the right choice.

I left her house that evening, and drove one hour to my best friend’s house crying loudly, three-quarters of the way home. I was upset at cancer for making her suffer but thankful for the notice. I started thinking about all of the things I could share about my Grandma and the impact she had on my life. And I started thinking about how when someone dies, we always remember the good things and push past the bad things. I challenged myself to think of the bad things and all that came to mind was one great realization. Never, not once, did I receive one word of criticism from my Grandma Cora. Not once. Not when I was six and she was scrubbing behind my ears in the shower. Not when I was 16 and pregnant. Not when I uprooted my son and moved out of state. Not when I dropped everything and moved to an Island. Not once. As a mother, a Sister, a daughter, a friend I wish I could say that I have inherited that quality, but I haven’t. No one in my life will ever be able to say the same about me, nor will I be able to say the same about anyone else in my life. For the next ten days in California, I looked at those around me with a little more love, a little more compassion and a little less criticism.

My Grandma was the first person to teach me many things. She taught me the beauty in the challenge of puzzles and showed her commitment in her steadfast determination to never give up. On a road trip home from Tracy when I was around the age of 7, we stopped at a tiny truck stop diner for lunch. She had $4 to her name, which bought us an egg sandwich and a cup of coffee. She taught me then; Eat Slow, it tricks your body. She was the first person to introduce me to church, paying my neighbor .25 cents per Hail Mary that I could recite by memory. She taught me independence by having me walk home by myself from first grade every day. She taught me love.
My Grandma was always the first person to express her pride in my decisions. She was always proud of me for making something of myself, and proud of the parent I had become. Proud of the life I created in a different state, but little did she know, being away from her was the hardest part. There were days I would think about her, and wanted nothing more than to take her to lunch that day. When I moved to Hawaii, it weighed even heavier on my heart. The thought that I would be so far away and not be there if something happened hurt, so much, that precisely one week before her diagnosis my boyfriend and I had a discussion about it. I told him my Grandma has always told me to live my life, has always emphasized the importance of living your own life, what makes you happy. She would be the first person to say “Don’t interrupt your life. You have your life to live” but the last person who’s funeral I would have ever guessed I would have to miss.

Everyone who knows me knows that I am the worst procrastinator when it comes to mailing Birthday cards. A few weeks ago, I was sorting through my card box and found two cards. A Birthday card and a Mother’s day card, both blank, both bought for Grandma Cora, both never sent. In May I held on to these cards with the naïve belief that I could save them for next year. Never did it cross my mind that next year may not be an option. I’ve learned a valuable lesson here, not just pertaining to greeting cards and timely mailings, but life in general. My Grandma was a constant in my life, a rock I knew I could always stand on when I needed to find my footing. She is a large part of who I am today, and who I hope to become in the future