Year: 2003

This entry is a bunch of stuff about the next several days following the death of my grandma. it’s definitely not the most pleasant entry, but if you wanna read it anyways,

i just wanted to jot down a few more notes about my grandma’s death. on one hand, it’s all something i totally dont want to think about, but at the same time it’s something i never want to forget. the day after my other death post, we went to the funeral. it was the hottest day ever. the sun beat down on us making us even more miserable than we already were. being in a cemetery no longer freaks me out. it really just doesn’t feel like a big deal anymore. what was a big deal was when the hearse pulled up. plain wooden casket just as ordered. contents: one grandma who was deeply loved. the thought that there is an actual person inside this tiny box, and not just any person, but someone i knew for my whole life was utterly insane. i was one of the people who helped carry this coffin through the graveyard.

the whole ceremony was very short. maybe 20 minutes tops. everything seemed completely surreal. funerals: i’ve seen them in the movies so many times. the weeping, the coffin, the hole in the ground, the eulogy. it all seemed so damn familiar despite the fact that i’ve never in fact actually been to one. The rabbi told some stories about my grandma that he had gotten from my aunt the night before. these stories were actually very impressive. i learned *a lot* about my grandma from that eulogy. in a way, i learned more about her in those few days after her death than i had in all the previous years of knowing her. She was quite a remarkable woman, having lived through the russian revolution, WW1, and WW2.

The rest of the night was spent talking to relatives and going to synagogue, and then the next day we (my cousins, brother, and i) had to go to my grandma’s house and clear everything out. being in her house now was pretty awful in general. reminders of her everywhere around. but it’s even worse to have to pack everything away. putting stuff into boxes that you know would never be used again. going through all of her clothes that we knew so well, the dishes that she always served us food upon, various knick-nacks, basically everything that was my grandma’s life was reduced to a bunch of brown cardboard boxes. as we carried out these boxes from her place, it really struck me that when you live in an old folks community, you don’t move out… ever… your stuff just gets moved out for you when you die.

the jewish people have a ritual where for 4 days after a funeral, people come over to the relatives house at sundown to mourn. by this point i was feeling so insanely tired and exhausted, i really just couldnt take it. i just had to take at least one day break. luckily my parents said they wouldnt mind, and so i only went to 3 of the days. spending three days in a row praying didnt really make me feel any more religious. if anything it did the opposite. it felt ludicrous to be sitting their chanting prayers about how great i thought god was when this was the worst week ever. i spent a lot of time thinking about religion during those days…. but i wont go into that here. this entry is long enough as is.

on the second to the last day of the mourning, about 5 days after my grandma’s death, her brother died. he had some severe form of skin cancer, because of which the doctors had to amputate his leg. but he pulled through the operation fine. everyone marveled for the next few days as to how great it was that a 96 year old man was ok after such a severe procedure. and then he died. so now there were two deaths in the family. *sigh*. i was never all that close to my grandma’s brother, so of course his death didnt hit me as hard.. except for the fact that it happened at such a troubling time.

the following day, my uncle was rushed to the hospital. he was having some huge problems w/ his gall bladder or something. the doctors wanted to operate immediately, but in the end chose to wait a little bit. i found all of this out while i was at my aunts house on the last day of mourning. it was fucking unbelievable just how much bad shit had happened recently. here we are mourning my grandma, with her brother’s funeral the next day, my uncle in a severe state, and through this whole time, my poor dad hasn’t even had a chance to spend time to be concerned about that fact that he just got diagnosed w/ cancer. ugh. seriously, if i had seen a movie where all this shit took place, i would have thought the movie was lame for coming up w/ such a ridiculous and fake plot. i mean, this much bad shit can’t happen all at once right??

It’s a few weeks later now, and things seem to have become more normal. people die.. and life goes on (for the rest of us).

-v

My grandma has been on the brink of death for the last couple of weeks. She’s been in the hospital and slowly but surely her health has been deteriorating. everything was slowly breaking down inside her body. most of these things didnt even register on the little machine w/ her vital signs that we frantically stared at while hoping for some kind of miraculous improvement. Of course, as could be expected w/ a 92 year old woman, that miraculous improvement never came. instead, things got worse and worse until tueday when the doctors told us that she didnt have a chance of lasting another day.

that day was awful. it was excruciating being in her hospital room, watching her lay there gasping for breath, and knowing that at any minute it could be the end. several of her other relatives came by to see her that day, and it was heart-wrenching to see the looks on their faces when they saw what my grandma had been reduced to. everybody braced themselves, each second afraid that the moment would come right at that time. i’ve never seen a dead person before. no one really close to me had died yet. in fact, i’ve never even been to a funeral or even to a cemetery. i kept thinking that i hoped i wouldnt be there in the room when it actually happened. i didnt think i could handle actually seeing it.

after a long hard day at the hospital, i finally went home. the next morning at 7am, i was woken up by the ringing of my cell and my cousin’s crying on the other line. my grandma had just passed away. my heart sank. it was the moment i had been expecting for a while, and yet still when it happened, it was devastating. An hour later i met my relatives at the hospital. a sea of red puffy eyes and looks of sorrow. at that point my mom said i should go to my grandma’s hospital room to “say goodbye” or whatever. as i walked down the hall with my mom, my mind raced “should i do this? should i just say i can’t? can i handle this?? oh my god. fuck. fuck. fuck.”

so i did it. i went in the room. everything was just as horrible as i could expect. the little vital signs monitor that i has spent countless hours staring at was now blank and unplugged. the respirator, iv, and all the other random tubes and gadgets that i had gotten accustomed to surrounding my grandma had all been disconnected. it was awful seeing her. fucking terrible. that image is still haunting me as i write this and i’m sure i’ll be able to see it crystal clear for years to come. looking back on it, i’m still not sure if it was the right thing for me to go in there. sigh…

seeing as my parents and my cousin’s parents were a complete and utter wreck at this point, it was up to my cousin and i to take care of everything now. we spent the rest of the day visiting funeral homes, the cemetery, etc finding out prices and trying to get as much information as we could so our parents would have to put in as little time as possible to make the arrangements. i’ve never been to a cemetery before, but after the grueling morning, going to a cemetery now seemed like nothing.

the guy who we talked to about buying a grave plot was upbeat and cheery. too upbeat. too cheery. i wanted to fucking punch his face in. his happy mood was a stark contrast to how my cousin and i were feeling and i really wished he could have toned it down a notch. not that i blame him. nor do i blame all the people working at the funeral homes who spend their day cracking jokes and giggling to each other. nor do i blame the nurses working in critical care who chat w/ each other and laugh about emails they receive. it’s a job. you cant expect these people to show up to their jobs day in and day out and be solemn all the time. but still, it was really annoying.

dying isn’t cheap. i’ve always heard before that funeral costs etc were pretty high, and that it’s important to save tons of money for that kind of thing. but i never realized just how much it is altogether. our arrangements ended up being slightly less expensive than they could have. for one thing, we didnt rent a funeral home in the end and opted for a graveside ceremony instead (for religious reasons). also, we got the absolute cheapest casket there is, since jews are supposed to be buried in a undecorated plain wooden casket w/ no metal. despite these savings, altogether this is going to run our parents $15,000. yes, that’s right. fifteen *thousand* dollars. death is a booming industry. so lucrative. it’s disgusting that people make so much money off it. it’s disgusting that the people you talk to try to wheel and deal and sucker you into spending money on extra little this-and-thats during your most horrible hours. what the fuck is wrong w/ them???

yesterday was probably one of the most exhausting days of my life. when i got home i was absolutely and completely drained physically, mentally, and emotionally. tomorrow i get to go to the funeral. *sigh*. there’s probably a ton more i could write about yesterday. i feel like so much happened. but i’m just too tired to write any more….

-v