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KTHPKC (profile) wrote,
on 9-12-2005 at 12:09pm
Current mood: sleepy
Music: Tara's music
Shneeeeeeeerf *head nods*


This is me attempting not to fall asleep because I've got class in less than 2 hours.

No chickens on SUVs today. Schade.

I forgot to bring my chalk with me back to campus again. I want to write stuff like "Go Geek! I <3 Geeks! Geek life!" because all of the stuff for those damn fraternities and sororities is getting on my nerves. Besides, geeks are much awesomer.

Bleck, so tired. Have to do German and English homework though. Hungry, but just ate a yummy bagel. Mmm...asiago cheese...

Hearts and peace from the German major nomad.

P.S. Happy late birfday to Gabe Jr, he looks soooo adorable.

Edit 3:54

I think I'm about done with my first English paper of the year! It's supposed to be about a remembered event or a remembered person, so I did a bit of both. It's about my Grandma and if you're tired of me whining about missing her and all that jazz then just suck it. I miss her like hell because she was one of the most important people in my life. So...
“Grandma, I’ve got to go. I love you,” nearly-sightless eyes clouded up with unshed tears as I bent down and gently placed a kiss on her weathered cheek, then wrapped my arms around her frail body as tightly as I could. I walked over to the door and turned, watching my little brother repeat my actions. Deep down in my heart, I knew that I had just said my final farewell to my grandmother, my mentor, my hero, my friend.
From as long as I could remember, my grandmother was one of the most significant people in my life. She always knew what to say to cheer me up and listened to me when I talked to her. Not many adults would do that with an eight year old. She taught me how to crochet and knit, and she continually encouraged me as I experimented with all different mediums of art. My grandmother always liked to tell me about when she was little and what little shenanigans she would get herself into. Most of all, my grandmother taught me never to give up even when the going gets rough, one of the many lessons she had learned during her long, hard life.
Sally Wilt, my grandmother, was born in the 1920’s. She lived and grew up in Illinois with her French-Irish family and experienced the Great Depression. My grandmother married my grandfather and had three boys, they later divorced.
Raising three boys on her own was very difficult for my grandmother. Since divorce was frowned upon in the 1960’s, it became even harder. Most of the time there wasn’t enough food in the house or enough money to pay the bills. On top of that, her oldest son was the trouble-maker of the family and was continually skipping school, doing drugs, and even running away from home. Thankfully my grandmother found a counterpart in her neighbor Eleanor Russell, also a divorced mother. They would bring their families together every week for dinner.
In the 1980’s my grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer. A few years, and a couple of mastectomies later, it was gone.
As a teenager my grandmother had started smoking, which eventually led her to her death. I can remember when I was little that my little brother asked her one time why she smoked; she just looked embarrassed and turned away, too shameful to look at her grandson. I can also remember, as one of my earliest childhood memories of my grandmother, when my family drove up to her house we’d all take one deep breath of fresh air before entering the smoke-infested house. I always swore that I could see the blue-grey clouds billowing up out of the opened doorway leading into the house.
In the year of 2001, my grandmother quit smoking. Overjoyed, my happiness was squished like a spider when my parents also informed me that she had lung cancer. My grandmother bravely started going to chemotherapy and lost her hair, joking about it as she sat at the kitchen table one night with her wig slightly askew. Someone had told her that sometimes after one lost their hair from chemotherapy, the new hair that grew back would sometimes be a different texture, style (curly, straight, wavy, etc), or even color! She was always laughing, especially about herself as she was a legally blind woman and would sometimes make mistakes and be a klutz. I remember looking through the pamphlets on lung cancer at her kitchen table, realizing more and more that my beloved grandma might actually die.
Because of her lung cancer, my grandmother became in an organization called Relay for Life. As devoted family members, my family and I would always come down to the Relay for Life: Walk for the Cure walk that would always take place in early June in my grandmother’s town. The first walk of every Walk for the Cure was held for cancer members, and my grandmother always strode on proudly, my father leading her, and held her head up high as the survivors walked around the race course.
My family and I had only had a few scares dealing with the Wilt family in the past nine years of living in Michigan. Our first year in our new house, my uncle, the trouble maker, was killed by a drunk driver the day after my birthday. In 2002 my grandmother contracted pneumonia and my father sped down to see her. In 2004 my grandfather went into a coma and we went down to see him, then go to the funeral only a week later. But the worst, and biggest scare to me, was in the spring break of 2005.
Early in April of this year, my family received an urgent call from Eleanor, my grandmother’s lifelong friend. My grandmother had tripped and fallen while at home and had broken her ankle. She was able to call Eleanor, although she wasn’t at home, but couldn’t get through to 911. My mother, littler brother and I tried to get down to the hospital as soon as we could to see how my grandmother was doing. She lay in bed, tongue still swollen from the intensive surgery she’d had to undergo for her ankle. My little brother and I rummaged around everywhere, trying to find a cough drop for her to ease her sore throat because the nurse had never come back with one for her. I will always remember what she said to me, one of the last things she ever said to me, “Katie, I’m so proud of you.”
My mother, little brother, and I stayed with her as long as we could; my little brother and I drawing get well pictures to tape to the sides of my grandmother’s hospital bed. We came back to the hospital the next day only to see that my grandmother with an oxygen mask on her face and very disoriented; she had gotten even worse over the night. Her kidneys were rapidly failing her. My littler brother and I took turns sitting next to our grandmother’s bed, holding her fever-heated hand and watching CNN as it replayed the Pope’s funeral over and over again. My mother made phone calls to my father and my uncle, my grandmother’s youngest son. The last thing we were able to ask her before she became totally delirious was if she wanted Ken to be there or not. She answered with a loud yes, before quickly falling back into her dreams.
She was moved to ICCU late in the afternoon, soon after my father arrived from work. Her health depleted severely. We all sat around in her room, trying not to talk about how much worse she was getting. I stared blankly at the large, very important-looking machines that were keeping my grandmother alive. I hated hospitals, especially since I’d had to go through almost the exact same thing a year ago, only this time with my grandfather.
After leaving the room, my little brother and I went back to our grandmother’s house and sat down in the family room. We both couldn’t sleep, we didn’t want to. My little brother insisted that everything was going to be alright, that grandma was going to get better. I merely nodded, sitting in my grandmother’s chair with her longhaired cat, Gabby, on my lap, knowing that he was trying to reassure himself more than me. I stroked Gabby’s soft fur, quietly whispering to her that I’d always take care of her, even if my grandmother couldn’t.
That night my uncle, her youngest son, flew in from California to see her. My grandmother seemed to have gotten better so my uncle, my father, and my mother all came back to my grandmother’s house only to receive a phone call from the nurse in ICCU, stating that my grandmother had taken a turn for the worst. My father and uncle quickly drove back to the hospital while my mother stayed at the house. The very next day, on April 9 at 7:15, my grandmother passed away. I awoke to the sound of the phone ringing and knew right away that my grandmother was gone. After talking on the phone, my mother came down to the living room where both my little brother and I were sitting.
“Kids, your dad just called. Grandma died.”
I swallowed hard, and the tears started to fall like rain. I didn’t bother to wipe them away, even though I’ve always had this mental block that I needed to be the strong one. I found Gabby and sat down, her jumping instantly on my lap. I cried ever more, my grandmother was gone; nothing else mattered at the moment.
Even though my grandmother has been gone for more than three months, it is still hard for me to write out the last remaining hours that I had with her. The pain is still too fresh, the burden still too heavy. I can’t help but cry whenever I think of the last thing that she said to me, and I probably always will. My grandmother, although she had her flaws, was still my grandmother. My mentor, my hero, my friend. And I will always love her, and remember her, even though she’s gone.

*~*~ This was very difficult for me to write. I kept on crying whenever I had to remember more and more details about the hospital.

Bleck, I'm tired. But I've got more homework to do.
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