April 13, 2011-Volume 25

The Adventures of the Blind/Low Vision/Visually Impaired (BLOVI) Girl-Volume 25

This week I want to write about my grandmothers. Last week my paternal grandmother had a massive stroke and passed away at the age of 85. She left 12 children (no twins and yes, Catholic), 24 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.  A few months ago, my maternal grandmother had to be placed in a nursing home where her body and her mind are failing her.  The way they lived their lives and how they ended or are ending them are vastly different and it has made me think about my legacy, how I want to leave this planet and what is really important in between.

I grew up as a distant member of my father’s family, who were grouped in South Carolina while I was in Florida. When I moved to South Carolina as an adult I was so involved in graduate school and work that I did not take the time or really know how to become part of that family again. In general, having independence and separation from family was a survival mechanism and it worked to keep me focused and successful. And I am not sure if I would have known how to do it any differently given who I was then. After my accident my grandmother and members of the family really stepped up to help me and for that I am greatly appreciative. My dad’s family, which is full of interesting personalities, is a close knit group who support each other. And they are funny, real and are great story tellers. I am still trying to figure out how to navigate in their world, because I am missing a large part of their history and now that I am legally blind I have no clue who anyone is when they are gathered in large groups like at the funeral. They kind of all look alike to me.

My grandmother was a gentle, laid back and genuinely good hearted and loving person who seemed unflappable in the face of the chaos of raising a huge family. To me she seemed genuine and steady and a person who truly enjoyed life. I wish I would have known her better. She was in good health when she died and was active. People kept saying that if you have to die to die that way, when you feel no pain, is the way to go and is a blessing for both the person and the family, who does not have to experience a deteriorating condition or one that causes pain. What is left however is the shock of a person being there one day and then not being there the next.  When that person is the matriarch of a huge family it leaves a void that will never be filled.

I grew up with my maternal grandmother, who was like a second mother to me. She was always there for us. As she grew older she became sadder and sadder and found no joy in her life.  My mother’s family is small as she is an only child and there is only one aunt left. And my sister and I each only had one child. My grandmother has dementia and can no longer walk. She has periods of lucidity and in that lucidity she is angry and wants her life to be over.  The burden of her care falls on my mother, as the only child, who is not only exhausted but is having to watch her mother slip into that place of oblivion where soon she will not know her. The difference between having a very small family and a very large one is magnified when family members age and begin the process of dying.  That is when you recognize how much support is needed to care for those getting older and sicker.

The way my paternal grandmother lived the end of her life and how my maternal grandmother is living her final years is so different that it makes me wonder why some people suffer at the end, with chronic disease that robs them of function and why others die and quick and painless death. Does it have to do with how we live our lives?  If I am a good person do I get to have a painless death?  I think the answer is no.  We all know that good things happened to bad people and bad things happen to good people.  So, good people can have long, drawn out and painful deaths or they can die peacefully in their sleep. Life is not fair, so why should death be? I am not sure what this means or what we are supposed to learn from all this, but here is what I have learned.

I think what is important is to find joy in your life, to be good to others and treat them as you would like to be treated, to forgive as much as you can and to not squander what opportunities life brings you.  And to find your way through or around the difficulties and chaos life brings, looking for how to grow and learn as you go.  What is also important is how you face your own death. How do you use the time left when you know that it is coming or how you live each day fully because you don’t know when it is coming. And what is important for families is how they deal with the dying and death of family members. Does it bring them together or break them apart. In the end it is about the ability to celebrate a life that was, hopefully well lived and to come together as a family to do that with both sadness and joy.

So I celebrate the lives of my grandmothers, children of the depression who did not have easy lives. And for now I think about living life fully with no regrets and trying to be a better member of my family and figuring out what that means.

Keep Moving Forward,

Beth (BLOVI) Medlock