My Grandmother, My Angel (Part 2)

I thought a lot over those two weeks on just how I would react when Grandma passed. I didn't really have much of a reaction though, it was just kind of numbing. Sure, I was upset that she was gone, but there were no tears. There was no crumpling into a heap on the floor, no screaming, no emotional breakdown...just a weird, numbing peace as we gathered up her belongings and walked out. It was strange having to leave her there, alone, waiting for the funeral home to come get her.

As we all piled her stuff into the cars, I feel like we were all thinking "now what?". For two weeks we had a routine, had the time to think about what needed to be done, but now that that time had come we were like lost, silent sheep looking to the next person to tell us what to do. I got in my car by myself, thinking about memories with grandma and thinking about the days driving around in her gold Duster, listening the The Judds while she drove like a bat out of hell. I started my car and the first song to start playing was The Judds...I cried the whole way back to dad's house listening to it on repeat.

The next couple of days we stayed busy finalizing her arrangements. We went through every room in their house for 2 days and cleaned it up; tossing the trash, donating the clothing and reminiscing over little things we would find. We found boxes of every card she ever received for like the past 25 years. Then we found boxes of love notes that Grandpa had written to her over the years and they were so sweet...I hope he's still writing and leaving her those little notes up there.

 

Finally the time to go back home came and that's when we all got emotional. Being at their house was kind of comforting. It is were I grew up at, it was my 2nd home as a child. It is where Grandma taught me to sew and cook, where Ladd and I built forts in the woods, where we took naps on the porch in the summertime, where we got on and off the bus at, where we ate breakfast and most dinners, where Grandpa fed the deer off the porch, where we gardened with Grandma, built 4-H projects with Grandpa, where I put together many puzzles with her while she listened to her gospel music. It's the only place I was made to be in bed by 8 on a school night and it still be daylight outside.

Locking up that door seemed to finalize the fact that she was really gone, that THEY were really gone. It left an empty feeling that trips back to NY were never going to be the same...