Category: San Francisco

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

saturday evening, in between hospital visits i went to Li’s party. I didnt have that great of a time given the circumstances, but the party itself was pretty cool. his house has a 4 foot half pipe in front of it. the plan for the night was that after people who knew how to skate got to ride the ramp, a bunch of people who had never skated a ramp before would go for it. now, 4 feet really doesnt seem like that high. practically nothing right?? well, when you stand at the top of the ramp, all of a sudden the 4 feet seem like a loooooong way down. io had been contemplating riding the ramp before, but once i got to the party i really wasnt feeling it. if i was gonna bail big time on a ramp, i’d rather do it someday by myself without a huge crowd watching. of course, i spent the next several hours being harassed by everyone and pressured to just go for it. after a while i started to think that i better try it. why not? what’s the worst that could happen? well, the worst did end up happening, but luckily not to me. after 3 people unsuccessfully tried to ride the ramp, mike kubo tried to ride it and ended up w/ a compound fracture in his ankle. several people had to rush him to the hospital and early the next morning he got surgery. yikes! after the happened, i was pretty glad that i didnt try to ride the ramp obviously…

here are a few photos and a couple of videos from that night… click (and yes, i do realize that the last one is sideways. but i dont know how to fix that.)
-v

i didnt particularly feel like writing anything on this topic, but i figure that at some point later i’d want to remember, so i may as well log it in the journal. my grandma is in the hospital. she’s been there since last sunday, and the doctors all insist that her chances of making it are slim to none. i finally went to go see her saturday during the afternoon. i really dont think i was nearly prepared for everything that i saw. it was just utterly horrible to see someone, who i’ve cared about my whole life, in that kind of condition. it just seems so disgusting and wrong that someone who has been such a loving mother to her children and a caring grandmother could end up in such a condition. but i guess that’s the kind of fate we are all in for. my grandma is 90 some odd years old now, and time has it’s way of working on people. my family has been rotating shifts watching her at all times. my poor dad and aunt especially have spent countless hours in the hospital watching over my grandma. that night, i finally took a shift from midnight to 9am. let me tell ya. it wasn’t very fun. when you’re at home, at least you can sort of try to push things like this to the back of your mind… but when you’re there, there’s hardly anything else you can think off. *sigh*

-v