I was sitting on my bed last Tuesday afternoon, enjoying an online chat with a friend and trying to procrastinate from doing my paper even longer (for which I had just gotten a week's extension) when I got a phone call. My mom had just gotten a call from the convalescent hospital that my Grandmother had slipped into an unconscious state and they didn't think she was going to last through the night. This was expected, I just didn't know when it was going to come. So of course I got ready and left for the hospital as soon as I could. My family was due to arrive a little later, when Peter got done with piano lessons.
I got there about 4:30 and found her room without much trouble. I had not yet seen her in a convalescent hospital, so I was a bit nervous about realizing that one of these people -- those same type of people that we had visited on many service trips during college (mostly to sing Christmas carols to) -- was going to be none other than Grandma. Well, I looked in the room and was shocked at her appearance. My first thought was, "She's dead." As I stood there in horror, she took a breath. She was at least alive, but not by much. Taking a breath was a huge strain on her body, even with the oxygen tank that she was hooked up to.
I stayed there for about an hour until my family arrived. We talked to her, but she did not respond. After another hour or so my uncle showed up from Elk Grove. (The only person not present was Scott, who was in Oklahoma.) We stayed around and talked some, but spent large spans of time in silence. It was a horrible feeling, realizing that you are waiting for someone to die, waiting for something you know you dread. Finally we left about 10:30, but I stayed on until midnight, wanting to keep her company until the end. I was very sleepy (I had been planning on taking a nap after finishing my online chat), but I wanted to stay awake for her in case she slipped away while I was asleep. At midnight I decided to leave her until the morning, because I didn't know how long she might keep going. Then about 3:45 that morning, my dad woke me up to say the hospital had just called to say she'd passed away. Okay, I responded. At least the waiting was over.
So the next day, my mom, dad, and uncle were at my grandmother's house getting arrangements made. It was a weird feeling being at Grandma's house without her there. I decided it was a lot like the times she went on vacation to Europe, and we took care of her house. Essentially, of course, that's what it was. I took my car to the shop to get serviced, and borrowed Grandma's car to go back to El Cerrito for class on Thursday. Things went pretty normal until today, the funeral.
It didn't hit me at the wake last night. It didn't hit me at the funeral Mass this morning. It didn't hit me as I was carrying the casket to the gravesite. It kind of started to hit when we saw it being lowered into the ground, and I realized that this was the last time we'd see her. We literally were burying her. To tell the truth, it still hasn't hit yet. But after I had gone back to my place in El Cerrito and taken a nap, I got really emotional. It may have had something to do with the lack of sleep I've been giving myself lately (Remember I was intending on taking a nap on Tuesday when my Mom had called? And the time change sure didn't help either). But the way it manifested itself was a strong longing for my family. All my siblings were there, my uncle, and all my mom's cousins (even the ones in New York and Texas); in short, everyone in my family who was still alive was there. And I really missed them.
I had left the banquet early to try to get to my philosophy class, which only meets once a week, but there wasn't really time to make it. I left anyway, against reason, but partly because I wanted to make sure Trevor could find his way home. (He was also leaving early, for work.) I really didn't want to go to class -- and Trevor said he really didn't want to go to work -- but I mustered the discipline to do it, even though I would miss class completely. I would still be in El Cerrito, so I could work on that paper that had already been extended a week. Well, of course I didn't want to do it. I didn't want to do anything. I napped, went to the bank, napped some more, and that's when I started regretting leaving the party early. My relatives, whom I almost never get to see all together, were at my grandmother's house at a very special family event, and I had skipped out to go write an essay. An essay that was already late! An essay that I could write on Wednesday. I could not see my family together another time -- not until Thanksgiving, and that's only if Nancy and Carolyn and Marilyn flew into California again.
But still, I felt like it was the "right thing to do." That is what bothered me so much -- my reason told me that family was more important, and my emotions were certainly more with my family than with my essay. So why did I think that leaving to do my essay was the right thing? Why do I still think that way, after realizing how hard it was to work on my essay tonight? Was it just my tired brain, playing tricks on me? Was there something in the back of my mind that insisted I be in El Cerrito tonight? Was it some interior conscience, telling me to buckle down and do what I didn't want to do? This is what I mean when I say that even the present and the past aren't clear. Of course the future isn't clear -- that is what my professor said when I asked for another extension because my Grandma had died -- he said that we can't plan for these things, so that's why it's better to get stuff done (like essays) earlier than later. But isn't the past supposed to be clearer than the future? How am I supposed to learn from the past if I can't even tell what the right choice was?
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