My grandma died last night. She was 89!!! She was my mother's mother. My mother died in an alcoholic car accident when she was 29. My grandma had to bury her at such a young age.
My grandma had 11 children. She put up with a mean angry alcoholic (my grandpa) who never got sober. My grandma came to her senses after MANY decades of emotional abuse and divorced him in her early 60's, some years before he died. What kept her from divorce for a long time was her strict Catholic upbringing. (And I am sure the Catholic thing may have had something to do with the 11 kids thing... birth control in the 40's and 50's??? Taboo, I believe, back then for a practicing Catholic.)
Most of her later life was happy. Then she got sick. She lived the last 6 years of her life in a nursing home. She was miserable there. She asked to never be taken to a hospital, and no heroic measures. She died yesterday in her bed with heart problems, diabetes, kidney infection and pneumonia. It was time to go.
She is with my mom now, I truly believe. A legacy is left behind, in that no matter who we are we don't have to die young from alcohol like my precious mother. We can choose life like grandma did, and if it is God's Will, we may just have many happy years ahead of us.
-- Edited by jonijoni1 on Thursday 13th of May 2010 06:14:33 PM
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~Your Higher Power has not given you a longing to do that which you have no ability to do.
