Goodbye Grandma
My Grandma Dolly, her given name Dolores, but don’t call her that, she hates it, died this morning at 91 years old, & I didn’t make it home in time to say goodbye.
When we left for Florida for spring break, I shared with Ryan my desire to prioritize a visit with her when we returned home, and I had planned on that visit occurring this week. When I scheduled this, she was fine. Days later her hemoglobin became critically low, and yesterday she entered hospice as we made the long drive home to try to make it in time to say goodbye. It seemed like we had more time. It always seems like we have more time with those we love.
I’m quite certain that any gitty up I have comes straight from her amped up genes. Life is weird like that as traits tend to skip a generation, and maybe that’s how it should be, especially during the tumultuous teenage years. As a young child she often scooped me out of my role as oldest of 12 and crowned me “only child” for a day of fun or a weekend at her summer home – a travel trailer parked permanently at Paradise Cove where she made BLT sandwiches dripping in grampa’s home grown tomatoes. She let me stay up late and cackle with her friends over cards (even though I never understood what was so funny), and snuck me candy when mom said no. She taught me how to quilt and make rag rugs and carted me around to craft shows where I sold my quaint stationary creations and she sold her funderware – men’s boxer shorts adorned with lace. We listened to Rush Limbaugh and Sandy Patty tapes on the way to the mall & she once tried to teach me candyland or farmland – some Facebook land game where you grow vegetables? And then you’re rewarded with candy? It sounds a bit like the Ronne dinner system. Eat your veggies and you get dessert.
She was one of my best book customers, and it wasn’t unusual for me to receive a $30 check in the mail with instructions to “bring me 3 more books next time you come for a visit.” She was always eager to try new experiences or adventures (but not new foods), and she even gave dating a shot a few years ago. That didn’t end so well. She certainly wasn’t perfect and could be as stubborn as a mule, insisting to everyone that she lived in semi independent living, not full time care like many others she knew. And boy oh boy, could she hold a grudge, just ask that boyfriend she dated a few years back.
She has loved well and played hard and lost many: siblings, parents, friends, her husband, a teenage son, and a newborn baby, but she kept going – kept traveling, kept putting one foot in front of the other – even when they hurt, which they did horribly in the end. She kept checking in on her 22 grandchildren and 37 great grandchildren and 3 great great grand children (at last count), kept playing her silly Facebook games, kept eating hot fudge sundaes and drinking an occasional celebratory margarita. She just kept living until this morning.
I don’t have many regrets in life, but I do regret not making it home in time to say goodbye before she left, and so now, I’ll try to desperately control a situation I have absolutely zero control over by saying – Grandma, if there’s any possible way you have access to your beloved digital kingdom in Heaven, this is me NOT telling you goodbye because goodbyes are for people we’ll never see again, and that’s not the case with us. This is me saying, I’ll see you soon, just not too soon, God willing. This is me asking you to give grandpa and your children and your friends and Jason a hug from me. This is me giving you the only thing I can still give you – my words. Thank you for your incredible example of resilience and courage in spite of so much pain. Thank you for seeing me as a young child and brimming with pride over the woman I became, in spite of my own pain and challenges. I promise I’ll continue to honor your example by living in much the same way as you did, moment by moment and step by step, loving, living, cackling with friends, eating tomatoes, and drinking margaritas until we meet again. I love you grandma.
Just keep livin
Written by Jess Ronne
