I received a phone call at 7am this morning. It was my mother calling to let me know my grandmother (Dad's Mom) had died earlier this morning. She was 98 years old and had no health problems other than old age. She went suddenly, and she was ready to go...she had been wanting to go for a long long time. She was extremely religious and spent her life trying to convert everyone to Christianity, the Southern Baptist variety, something that I found extremely offensive. Still, I suppose she did do a lot of good deeds in her lifetime, and she was one of the fascinating people who saw progress from mule and cart and outhouse on a farm to jet propulsion, world wars, the space program, and nanotechnology.She is the last of my four grandparents to depart this world, and she often spoke to my Dad about how she hoped a lot of people will show up for the funeral. When she sold her house and moved into a retirement center a couple of years ago, she really wanted me to go to her house and pick out a few things to take. I'm am not a lover of old lady things, antiques to some/extra junk to me, but I found her silver tea service which I figured might actually be useful some day, so I took that, and she was very pleased when my Dad told her I had selected it. I have some silver polish under the sink, so I think I'll find all the parts, polish them up, and set it up on my coffee table for a few days in honor of her.
The funeral is Thursday, and I thought I was going to be a pall bearer, but Dad is going to make all the men in the family do it instead. And I feel bad because I don't feel bad about her death. I mean, she was 98 years old for goodness sake. But I do wonder exactly what time she died, because I woke up around 5:30 am and kept going back to sleep for a minute or two, then waking up again.
So rest in peace, Grandma. You've earned it.
2 comments:
There have been relatives who died and left me feeling not especially sad. I think the sadness comes later in that they weren't important enough in my life to warrant any sadness.
I think it's nice that you took the tea service. As you know, I have a house-full of dead people's stuff, but virtually all of it are things I like. People tried to get me to take more, but I didn't want something just because it belonged to someone, I wanted things that had a memory attached, or things I just plain liked.
I hope the rest of your family is getting through it well.
*hugs Jenny*
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