9 Months After The Death Of My Gam Gam, Will My Family Ever Be The Same ?

[TG4MJ]

On December 16th, 2011, I woke up not from a nightmare, but to one. It was about 4 in the morning, I saw the living room light was on which made me decide to go ahead and get up, only to see my father and grandfather wide awake and visibly shaken. They told me my grandmother was in the hospital. At the time I didn't think too much of it as she is a very healthy woman aside from some arthritis. They weren't too thorough on the subject, just that she'd collapsed but they had her stabilized. It wasn't until the day after when I actually went to go see her in the hospital for myself that the severity of what happened to her was brought to my attention. She collapsed and was without oxygen for too long. By the time they stabilized her, she was already brain dead. She never wanted to be kept alive by a machine but her family got involved and decided to keep her alive to see if there would be improvement and the brain healed itself, which allegedly it can do. After seeing her with tubes in her and hooked up to those machines, it broke me. I broke down and sobbed at home, even at work in the middle of calls. I cried out to the heavens up above me and begged the good lord to please not take her from me as she was pretty much the person I was closest to in my family, but after six days, after tests revealed she was not improving, the decision was made to let her go.

 

I can't begin to tell you how much this just destroyed me as a person. I was closer to her than I was my own mother. She was never Grandma Connie, she was, and always will be Mama Connie to me. I lost my grandmother 3 days before Christmas, the one who was the healthiest and most energetic and outgoing of them all. The one I thought who would be last to go because she was so full of life. The one person who made me feel important, who made me feel whole, who made me feel loved, who accepted me and loved me unconditionally, flaws and all. She was pretty much the only person who could calm me down when I was at my most destructive and angry. Of all the good memories I will ever have with my family, the most and the best will always be of and with her. She was the patriarch of our family, and now she is gone.

 

My father and two uncles are devasted by their loss but they are strong men who while sad on the outside, are able to overcome and still be strong enough to go on about their routines and at least appear to go on. The brothers and sisters deal with it roughly though my aunt who is the baby of the group is the most broken, which has gotten worse for her as she lost her husband of close to 50 years back in july. The grandchildren which comprise of myself my sister and younger cousin are equally as devastated. Well my cousin and I as we were always the closest to her, I being the only grandson and her being the baby. My sister didn't seem to be as hurt but was always closer to my maternal grandmother which irks me as my grandmother never understood why my sis never called or visited as much as my cousin and I. I can honestly say that nine months later not a day has gone by that I don't shed a few tears when it dawns on me that the one woman who loved me with all her heart is now gone forever. Worst of all is my grandfather, he was always by most accounts and from personal observation, an alcoholic and belligerent drunk who alienated himself from the rest of the family by being very insufferable when intoxicated, but he has since become much, much, worse. According to my father and uncles, he has, locked himself into his workshop, a room with no ventiliation and not particularly clean, and never come out. He set up a small tv there, he eats there, he does crossword puzzles there. He gets stumbling drunk there. He refuses to go back into the house. As a test family members will change the channel on the tv in the living room. It will still be on the same channels for weeks on end. His drinking is at its total worst, I mean he was always belligerent and generally embarassing as a drinker, ruining countless get togethers and embarassing us all on several occasions with his excessive drinking, but now it's just at an all time bad.

 

Every day for the last nine months has been a struggle. My family is not easy to talk to, I have no friends as I had to quit hanging out with a bad crowd about two years ago, I have no wife or kids, I have never felt so incredibly alone and unloved. As of late I've even gone as far as to purposely drive around in neighborhoods I'm not well liked in actually hoping I'd be recognized by some old rival and killed. I even went as far as to show up to a house party hosted by my former friends, who according to rumors, want me dead for walking away from their outfit. Unfortunately, they weren't too serious about wanting me dead because they didn't have the sack to at least try and kill me (You'd think a couple of hardcore ex cons would at least attempt to put me out of my misery but they just cussed me out and repeatedly told me to leave instead, bunch of punk MFer's). Just don't know what else to do. Life without my gram grams just doesn't seem to be worth living. Will it ever get better for me or my family ?

[quankanne]

ah, honey ... I am so very sorry for your loss, am sending up a prayer for your family as y'all go through the grieving process. Your granny sounds like a fantastic lady.

 

have you had a chance to talk to someone who can help you through the grief, like a member of the clergy or a grief counselor? Sharing your story here can help, but you really need to also have someone in your regular world help you navigate this. The only thing I know for sure is that the only way around grief is to go through it. Not very comforting, knowing there's no short-cut, but the process can be a healing one if you let it.

 

when my mom was dying, there were certain songs and books that helped me through it, though I will be the first to admit I went through a mild depression (grief + stress) and was on prescription medication to help me through it. Mostly, I felt very, very lost, because my mom was the North Star of my universe, she was my true guide and deepest love, and the dearest friend I'll have ever had. it was a rough patch, but I came to realize that even though she is gone from this plane of existence, she lives on in the memories of so many different people that when I see them, I get a "piece" of her. It's really pretty comforting to know.

 

more importantly, I believe that the best of her lives on in me ~ yes, I'm my own person, but all that is good about me? That's my mom, shining through, and it makes me try harder to be honorable, respectable and the kind of loving person that she was. And it makes me feel even closer to her, because then I become her living legacy.

 

don't let your grief make you do careless things, but celebrate your Gramma's life by emulating all those wonderful things you love best about her: if she was active in a social group, take a leaf from her page and get involved with a project you have an interest in and give of yourself whole-heartedly the way she has. It doesn't have to be what she does, but with the joy and spirit she gave, you know? Because then you realize just how much you carry her in your heart, and how much she exists in you :love:

[skydiveaddict]

I can't begin to tell you how much this just destroyed me as a person. Life without my gram grams just doesn't seem to be worth living. Will it ever get better for me or my family ?

 

Yes it will. Death is something we all deal with. Not one of us escapes it. Your grieving is just the natural process of healing. hang in there.