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Current mood:	enraged

Saying Good-Bye

After spending over fifteen years in a nursing home, we all knew it would only be a matter of time before my grandmother would fade away. When I last saw her -- shortly after the passing of my uncle Bill -- her mind was even less functional than when she first had the stroke, and generally refused to participate in any rehabilitation. (It was about six months after she went home that I had a dream: she could walk, with a cane, and was still the grandma who loved me like my mother would never do. I cried for hours.) She seemed to have almost no short-term memory. Still, she recognized me, and her joy made me feel sick in the stomach for all of the years that I didn't come. I could only put a few of the years down to my mother. The rest...I was a coward. I couldn't face my incredible debt to her.
Before my mother cut off all communication with me -- meaning, of course, that I could have nothing to do with her while she still sent mysterious messages and packages -- she said that, when her mother died, she would ensure that no one would know. She wouldn't run an obituary; there would be no service; she would tell no one. It was her grand punishment to her mother...and to all of us.

Except that Uncle Bill understood, years ago, that this type of thing could happen. So he left a second phone number for the nursing home to call. And after endless days of no answer from my mother, they reached out to Aunt Marie. She then worked to track down my dad. He told me last night.

We have no idea, yet, of what will happen to my grandmother's body or if we can somehow intervene and make the proper arrangements. My mother still hasn't returned the nursing home's phone calls, so perhaps they can claim negligence.

But I have tremendous relief in knowing that my mother failed.

We know. And we will mourn Marilyn Gerlach. And we will continue to love her.

You couldn't stop that, you selfish, diseased bitch.