Disclaimer: I am absolutely aware of how selfish all this is about to sound but I have been holding this in for well over a week and I need to let it loose.
My (in our hearts, not blood) sister's mom was diagnosed with breast cancer 8 months ago. The cancer spread to her bones and she broke her left arm the day before Thanksgiving and her right arm just after Christmas.
She passed away yesterday. Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 10:35 am. She was 56.
My sister didn't want to be at the hospital when her mom passed and I am so thankful that her dad, her daughter, and I were there with her at the house instead.
What do you do? What do you do when a loved one hears such awful news that we all knew was inevitable but still the hardest thing to realize? I froze in my tracks, started to shake, and just had to let my sister go when she walked passed me to go to the restroom and cry. I didn't have the nerve to follow her in there because I felt she needed space. Her dad finally went in there with a tissue and her daughter finally noticed that everyone was out of the room.
She asked me "I wonder what they said about Grandma" and I just had shrug and croak out an "I don't know sweetie" because I knew it wasn't my place to tell her the news. I thought the night I was present when my sister told her Grandma was dyeing was the hardest thing I've ever had to witness. I held in all my tears and waited for my sister to collect herself, as best as she could, and tell her.
A few tears fell when us girls were hugging on the couch and my sister decided it was time to make phone calls since family would be on their way to the hospital in the morning. Her dad and I stepped in to make calls to family and friends, respectively. My sister went to get ready for all the arrivals and her dad suggested we start cleaning the place up as I was sitting in a haze on the couch.
I needed the distraction from my emotions and to focus on something. Especially something I knew I could do to help. By the time I was finished, people were arriving and my niece was fighting for attention since my sister's dad was greeting everyone. I sat and read with her for quite awhile until she decided that wasn't enough and set up a chair to read to everyone in the room. Thank goodness for my niece to keep everyone laughing and focused on her instead of the sadness lingering in the air.
The rest of the day was a bit of a blur between finding silly things to laugh at, to watching a Monarch butterfly flitter in front of the house, to blinking back tears at all the memories that I was flooded with sitting on the front porch.
The family went to dinner and the friends (including myself) took my niece to rent a movie and get pizza. I was grateful my sister went with the idea since I was terrified of sitting at a dinner that I couldn't get up and walk away from if I needed a moment.
I finally took my leave after everyone got back from dinner. I said goodbye, packed up my stuff in the trunk, and as soon as the car door was shut (and locked, it is Long Beach) and my butt hit the seat, I completely lost it. I didn't realize my sister's dad had been watching me from the window to make sure I got in my car okay, and as soon as I spotted him, I sped off as I was still hysterically crying. Probably pretty stupid, in hindsight.
After working up the nerve to call *someone* to talk to me the rest of the way home, I had to run through the people I could call at such a late hour (the list was short). My brother was at the bar and the next person I thought would be up was my best friend. Luckily she was at work and, as soon as I was able to form words, cried to her the rest of the way home and told her what happened.
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This will have to be continued at a later time when I can get the rest of my thoughts together.
"It is because of my wish to be helpful that I share my ideas and experiences; being helpful to even one person is valuable." - Dalai Lama
"This lifetime of ours is transient as autumn clouds. Impermanence makes every moment glorious and precious." - Deepak Chopra
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