It was a month ago that we spilled out in the hallway of the hospital. Unsure, afraid, avoiding eye contact with each other less we loose our composure. Quietly excusing ourselves from bedside to make our way to the back of the room when we did.
"This is a good family," a man in scrubs suggested as he walked by. "Excellent family," remarked a nurse a few minutes later, "Can I get you to visit some of my other patients?"
It is my Grandma Mom, our family matriarch, who is loosing her battle with cancer. After all the radiation her body would allow, chemotherapy, and two very radical surgeries they found the skin cancer had rapidly advanced into her lungs and chest.
"Not the answer I wanted to hear," she quietly exclaimed after the doctor delivered the bad news. "I was hoping it was an infection and they could treat it with sulfur." This Alaskan pioneer is no where near "ready to go."
Surrounded by a rotating nest of five children, and half a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren, and friends she treasured for over fifty years, she spent her day answering the phone. A grandson came by to show her sonogram of his new daughter, his brother lost his child the same day.
The nurses remark about how bossy the women of our family are, a trait that we picked up from her. I laugh to watch my aunts using the same language to get her to eat that she has been using for all her life to get us to eat. She was a hell of a woman, she is a hell of a woman. One that will be sorely missed.
She is out of pain now, because of the morphine. That is a blessing. And we look at the silver lining in this dark cloud. There is time to say goodbye.
For as the creed of the Alaskan Pioneer has declared for over a hundred years, the trail ends not here. There is no death. What seems so is transition; death is an episode of life. It is closing dim eyes, for an instant, to open them with clearer, larger vision, as from a mountain top upon a wider horizon.
All those good and generous qualities which live within my Grandmother are immortal. They cannot die. Faith, love and hope abide.
Filed in: Seward Alaska culture girlfriends pioneer
4 comments:
I am sorry to hear of your loss Dorene. I have known you for so many years girl and never knew what an awesome grandma you had!!I love you lots, Andi
You had me in tears with your grandma. I have been truly blessed to have known her and your family over the past almost two decades.
Your grandma is an amazing woman.I wish her no pain and suffering. Please send her my love,thoughts, and prayers.
It is hard to loose a grandmother. Unfortunately ,I lost mine a year ago March. It's tough.
I love you and I will be here for you if you need someone to talk to even at 2 a.m. I will probably be awake in pain-yes the leg pain is back. I need to escape Arizona's Monsoons.
Keep your chin up. Please tell your beautiful daughter "hi" for me. I love and miss you all.
I am sorry to hear about Millie.
Mildred Loretta Heinbaugh Sorenson passed away quietly at 4:10 p.m. on Friday, July 29th.
She was surrounded by her loved ones, at peace with her circumstances, quietly and gracefully slipped away.
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