Goodbye at 2:12

My grandma died yesterday.

The loloINK grandma.

No one called her Lolo until Luke was born and he couldn’t say Grandma Lois. It’s weird how that caught on. I can’t imagine calling her anything else now, but most of my life she was Grandma Lois.

She died at 2:12pm, which is the exact same time that I was born. That was a full circle moment for me and having her close our intimate connection in such a symbolic way was a very fine and sneaky and fun gesture. Three of my four children were holding her as she died. Luke, though, the one who named her Lolo, was camping ten hours north of her nursing home bed, in Ashland, which is where my Grandma grew up. Fitting, I suppose, that he, the child of mine with the longest link to her, the most time spent with her, would be honoring her on her old stomping grounds.

In fact, one of my favorite stories about Lolo is from her time in Ashland. She gave birth to my aunt Janice there, at home, on the floor. Worried about the mess she was creating, she asked her older sister to please hand her some newspapers. Her sister, mistaking the request for another kind, said, “You want to read? Now?!”

I have had the honor of being with both of my grandmothers when they passed away. Yesterday, I was struck by how similar their deaths were. My reaction to their dying though, has not been the same. When my grandma Jean died, I immediately wanted to celebrate her life, to tell stories, to talk at her funeral, but when Lolo died, well, I guess I just felt sad.

I did not expect to feel sad because she has been slowly dying for almost a year now. It was a beautiful death, a death I have been praying for. So I am surprised that I am sad and even more surprised that I don’t really want to talk about it. 

Lolo is the entire reason why I wanted a big family. Her Christmas Eve is the reason I’ve worked so hard on my marriage and with my children. I want to grow up to be an old woman, with piles of presents on my lap. I want to grow up and cook a giant meal in anticipation of all of my children and grandchildren coming home.

Her influence on me has been enormous and subtle. My love of glasses, dishes, bathrooms lined with cute soaps…towels, nighties, coats, and beer, all link to her. She told me never to use the word hate or the phrase “pissed off.” She taught me how to love.

Last night I could not sleep. That is not unusual in the summer, because Sean turns our air conditioner off (because it is noisy) and then tosses and turns until the down comforter is twisted around me like rope. Last night though, I really, really couldn’t sleep. At four AM I walked downstairs in my underwear and spent the next three hours scrubbing the kitchen clean.  I despise cleaning and never use it as a means to alleviate stress. I needed to not think, though, needed for my head to stop hurting, needed to sweat, needed not to wonder… and in some very weird and unexplainable way, needed my grandma to feel proud of me.

It felt like I was preparing the kitchen for a homecoming.