My Nana had pink hair that a long time ago used to be red , she carried on talking to her husband as normal the day after he died . She had no teeth bar the one and refused dentures. She'd always been called Peggy , even though her name was actually Emma .She loved it for me to bring coffee cream chocolates. She insisted that she wasn't old enough to be in a nursing home . She despised the other old dears because they yelled everything at each other and repeated themselves . She listened to opera .She hid her tablets and would listen to no body's reasoning bar my own . She told me every time I visited that I was her favourite girl and she loved me . And I knew it elementally. She talked with her hands . Every time I left I told her to behave herself. She believed in me whole hearted and whole heartedly believed I would be something amazing.
She used to tell me often that she day dreamed I would be swept off my feet in the US and how she saw it in her head ' He'll offer to help you and your eyes will meet and that'll be it , he'll sweep you off your feet' At which point , she'd close her eyes and swoon a bit in her own story . Then I'd tell her ' Nana you read too many Mills & Boon novels .Take your meds ' . The woman adored me , she told me I was the smartest person she'd ever met , that I was more beautiful than Ava Gardener and that I was too kind hearted and loving . She told me how proud of me she was . When I left each time she held onto me for dear life , like I wouldn't come back.
The funny thing is she was my Nana and I was her granddaughter . Yet there was no biological link between us . My dear , dear Nana was once upon a time my parents next door neighbour and she became my Nana over a matter of time . I adopted her . I chose her for my Nana just as much as she chose me as her Granddaughter . Of course she had Grand kids , She just wanted me . I loved her more than I had ever loved my maternal Grandmother , who is long deceased. I loved her a lot and hard because she wanted me.
I was the one the Doctor took to his office and told she had cancer . It was aggressive lung cancer and secondary in most places by now. I sat by her bedside and pretended everything was okay after. Helping her with her arrow words and drinking tea and eating Thornton's.
I was the one who sat with her at the nursing home and gossiped about the other barmy old dears and how bad the food was and refused the endless jelly babies she pushed upon me . I was the one who convinced her that the nurses weren't out to get her and that she needed to do as she was told . I begged her to eat and take her tablets every afternoon .
I watched her deteriorate , slowly at first . Saw her get ill from the medication , have to rely on the oxygen tube in her nose , be miserable in the home her real son had placed her. I brought her , her normal presents her chocolates , her arrow words , her jelly babies but she'd lost interest and she'd tell me often how she just wanted to die and be with her husband . I didn't blame her and I really didn't want her to suffer more than she all ready did .
At Christmas the deterioration accelerated , I watched her open presents with not much lustre and I held her hand for hours all day . She started to get confused and it scared her , she knew she was starting to wind down . She made me promise that I'd be there to hold her hand when it happened because if I did she wouldn't be scared. I promised . I watched her get worse and worse until last week she kept forgetting who i was for twenty minutes at a time.
On Saturday afternoon my Dad burst into my work with an hour left on my shift , I immediately downed tools and left without telling anyone . He didn't say much on the way , just that we had the call that my Nana was near the end . We raced to be there . She was dying . No false alarms , no hospital stays followed by rehab this was it . She was barely conscious but she was holding on for us to get there you could see her brain slowly shutting off in stages. She knew we were there , she squeezed my hand and soon after we heard a gasp that was to be her last breath. My mother and I held a hand a piece sobbing as a wonderful woman slipped away from us as quickly as she came to us . I held her hand in mine and with the other I felt her pulse slow in her wrist and I watched her eyes close for the last time. At 5.25 pm. 32 minutes after I got there I lost one of the most important people in my life . But I got there . I knew she was terminal but even knowing that , I felt sharp shock of her immediate absence from the world .
Her body was still warm and I refused to leave her for the best part of an hour after . It didn't even occur to me that I was hugging a corpse and kissing its forehead . My Nana looked like she was sleeping not like a dead body . I finally left when her real son got there . I walked on auto pilot was hugged and reassured by my distraught mum , forced rum sweetened tea by the care workers . I phoned work , to tell them where I was and that I wouldn't be in but I couldn't get the words out because I was gasping for air . My colleague managed to piece it together and said she'd sort it all out. I sat in the car on the way home and I was relived . I was contented , my Nana hurt , she wanted to go to her husband and was too tired to live , unlike everyone else I could accept that and be okay . I was content because I loved her too much to keep her here suffering for us . Even selfishness wouldn't let me be sad for that . I'll forever miss her , I already feel a huge void in my life just two days later but I cant be angry or upset that she is gone.
On Saturday I learnt that when it is truly your time to go , Its really okay to go. I am satisfied I did everything I could by her , I kept my promise and none of us were scared. I'm so glad I made it there . That I didn't stop to explain to my boss and miss her last half hour. That I was able to do that for her . I am SO thankful for the time that she was mine.
When I phoned work this morning I asked the personnel team for bereavement leave for my Nana .Regardless . She was MY Nana and I would have done ANYTHING for her . I was there when she passed away.
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