Stuff to Gather

Today has been really hard. I have been feeling queezy and hormonal the whole day and if that weren't enough I have had a very stressful day at work. Things have gotten really busy here and although the job itself is not all that complicated I am working with this person who seems to overcomplicate it. I am just trying to be as accomidating as I can which is easier said and done given my increased emotional sensativity.

My mom also called today and said that my Grandmother has gotten a lot worse. Her skin is cold to the touch and she is unresponsive. The hospise nurse called my mom and said that my Grandmother has only a few hours to a few days (max). All of her systems are slowly winding down and all she can do is use energy to breathe (which her resp. is very labored as well). For some reason I am ok with this though. I understand that my Grandmother is older (72 is pretty young to die but still) and I think she had the ability to show her love for her family and friends before she was gone. I have to say that getting to say goodbye was such a blessing for her since there are few times that people really are able to say their peace. Also I know she was ready. By the end she had made her peace with death and was ready to leave the world. I think when I am there at the funeral I will feel the whole thing more, but I was able to say goodbye and I have a whole new appreciation for the person that she is and I think that gives me inner peace with her passing. I can't say that I am completely uneffected by the whole situation as I know that somewhere deeper there maybe a saddness that is hiding under it all and maybe when the situation is more appropriate I will be able to let those feelings out with confidence. Until then I am not going to grieve for her but celebrate her memory a little bit more. I am choosing to think about how much I truley did appreciate the person she was in her older age and how I am going to miss her peanut butter ball and super yummy cookies at Christmas. How I won't have her beating me in card games anymore and how nice it has been over these past few years to come to an understanding on each other's personalities. I have grown and she has grown and with all that growth came a middle ground. A place where we could meet and joke about things and where we could look at one another with love and respect. I haven't really appreciated her as much as I think I should have over the past years and in some ways I regret the judgements on her that I have passed but in other ways I have loved watch a change within my Grandmother as she readjusted priorites and became a person I could not only relate to but grow to admire.

We all have these steps in life and none are easy. It's so hard when we realize that we are changing and moving in a different direction because you always feel that you are losing some sort of a part of yourself like you are sliding away, but it is interesting how much her changes made me really like who she had become. I started looking forward to seeing my Grandmother for Christmas Eve. I loved when my mom was rosting the turkey and my Grandmother would arrive with all these sweet treats in tow. And all of us girls would be in the kitchen talking. Well I was more in there to pig out on as many sugarful goodies as I could but it was still quality time. We would all talk about all these new things going on in each other lives and once I started to have a life I was all about it.

In fact, I remember when I first started really liking Stan I spilled all these beans to my Grandmother about how I wasn't sure how he really felt about me and that I thought he could really be the one. It was nice because he was and somewhere I think she knew that.

It's sad to think that my baby will not get the opportunity to get to know her at all but I have stories and many are good ones to share so I know that they will get to know her in the same way that I have always known and loved my Pop-pop Paul. I used to think about how he was watching me from Heaven and how I never wanted to disappoint him so I always tried to make the best decisions I could. Well, within reason as we all know. So somewhere my Grandmother will be watching over this baby and whenever I desperatly try to duplicate her peanut butter ball reciepe I will start the stories of how my Grandmother and I grew to love one another not just as family member but as the hard headed, fancy clothes loving women that we were.