This morning, at 6:30, my mother called me to tell me that they didn’t think my great grandmother (Mom’s dad’s mother) was going to make it through the rest of the day. I immediately got up, got dressed, and went to the nursing home to be with the rest of my family. I’ve spent three out of the last four days there because she’s gotten worse and worse. As the day wore on, we could tell that she was fighting it, but she wasn’t going to make it. At 1:30 this afternoon, she passed with her family around her, or as many of us as could make it. We’d spent the day with her, laughing, talking, crying, and reminiscing. She was a great lady, feisty all the way to the end. The nurses at the nursing home always called her Houdini because she could find ways to get out of her wheelchair belt that even a child couldn’t do. She suffered from Alzheimers and hadn’t been herself since before I was born, but she was a fighter and lived by herself and took care of herself as best she could until her 93rd year, when she was moved to the nursing home. Had she lived to her next birthday, she’d have been 96 years old this year. We all know, though, that she’s no longer suffering, no longer in pain, and that she’s with my great-grandfather and all her sisters in a better place. She’s loved and missed.
Maude Clyde Miner, known to everyone as Clyde. October 11, 1912 to June 12, 2008. :(
My condolences to you and your family on your sad loss.
I remember two of my great grandmothers, even though they’ve been gone for about 40 years. Like Sjenee’s, they were both real characters. One of them was walking past the Empire State Building in her 90’s when she stopped to look up to see if she could see the top of it. Shortly a crowd of people had gathered around her and my Uncle and also started looking up. One person asked another what everybody was looking at and the second person said “I don’t know, maybe somebody is going to jump”. My great grandmother, overhearing this, turned to my Uncle and said “Come on, George. If somebody’s is going to jump, I don’t want to be around when they do.”
If you can remember stories like this one, your great grandmother will never be forgotten.
Thanks y’all! Sunday at her funeral, they played a slideshow of pictures of her and the preacher was talking about how the first time he met her that she was wearing some high heels and tight jeans (this was back in 1991, so she was 78 years old). She was definitely a character. My dad’s mother told me and my sisters that we were very lucky to have had a great-grandmother, and we still have one left living, but Granny’s definitely the one who left the bigger imprint on our memories.
My thoughts are with you and yours.