relativity
May. 27th, 2005 08:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alenxa_classicSo I'm making pizza last night and the phone rings. It being 10 pm or thereabouts, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kelson picks it up, rather than screening, while I continue rolling dough. I'm at the putting on of the toppings when he comes in and says, "Your mom wants to talk to you."
So I get the phone full of flour and cornmeal and powdered cellulose, and she says, "I have some sad news for you."
"O-kaaay...." And all I can think is, Squeaky?
"Grandma died this afternoon."
I'm relieved. That's all I can really muster up. She goes on with the peaceful <standard comforting drone> slipped away <not important> quiet, comfortable <I forgot>, which I was pretty much expecting from someone who didn't have the strength left to fight with much of anything. Sometime between 1:30 and 2 pm, and all the care-facility employees who knew her came in to say good-bye. She didn't say whether that was before, during or after.
I tell her I'm relieved. She doesn't say, but I know she and my aunt have been worn down enough by this that I think they are, too. I'm really over the mourning thing, or at least the showy parts; I don't do slow and agonizing well, so I tend to let my worst-case-scenario generator run wild and just get the whole feeling-awful thing out of the way. I've said before that as far as I'm concerned, Grandma, the real Grandma, has been dead for over a year now. I've said that to all kinds of people, but I'm not sure I could say it to her daughter.
So, yeah, sad thing, but for the best. There's not a lot that bothers me about this. I'm not going to have a happy time with all the mourning old people who are most certainly going to be at the service, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it. And the Last Grandparent Standing is, as I knew would happen, Madame WWJD. Which is perfectly fine with me, just sad that I don't feel I can really be close to her.
The thing that's bugging me is dessert. Dessert is my thing that I do, that my family doesn't feel the need to tell me I don't need to do. With Grandpa it was easy. My great-aunt in northern CA used to make these huge chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies in quantity once a year or so and send a shoeboxful down here, and he would hoard them on the top shelf of the pantry where nobody else but my dad could reach them. The aunt in question died 10-15 years ago, but I weaseled the recipe out of the cousins and made a ton of the cookies for the memorial, and everybody who was in the know said it was perfect that I made them. But I can't remember what Grandma's favorite dessert was, or if she had one, and that bothers me. I think it was angel food cake, with strawberries if they were in season. My mom says my sister has become the cake queen so she'll probably make it. But then what do I do? And what if we have the wrong idea? Will someone come up to me and say something about what they wished was on the buffet, because the cookies were just so special, and I'll realize I don't remember the way I should?
Strike that. I don't remember the way I should. I don't think we ever really do.
kelson picks it up, rather than screening, while I continue rolling dough. I'm at the putting on of the toppings when he comes in and says, "Your mom wants to talk to you."So I get the phone full of flour and cornmeal and powdered cellulose, and she says, "I have some sad news for you."
"O-kaaay...." And all I can think is, Squeaky?
"Grandma died this afternoon."
I'm relieved. That's all I can really muster up. She goes on with the peaceful <standard comforting drone> slipped away <not important> quiet, comfortable <I forgot>, which I was pretty much expecting from someone who didn't have the strength left to fight with much of anything. Sometime between 1:30 and 2 pm, and all the care-facility employees who knew her came in to say good-bye. She didn't say whether that was before, during or after.
I tell her I'm relieved. She doesn't say, but I know she and my aunt have been worn down enough by this that I think they are, too. I'm really over the mourning thing, or at least the showy parts; I don't do slow and agonizing well, so I tend to let my worst-case-scenario generator run wild and just get the whole feeling-awful thing out of the way. I've said before that as far as I'm concerned, Grandma, the real Grandma, has been dead for over a year now. I've said that to all kinds of people, but I'm not sure I could say it to her daughter.
So, yeah, sad thing, but for the best. There's not a lot that bothers me about this. I'm not going to have a happy time with all the mourning old people who are most certainly going to be at the service, but I'm pretty sure I can handle it. And the Last Grandparent Standing is, as I knew would happen, Madame WWJD. Which is perfectly fine with me, just sad that I don't feel I can really be close to her.
The thing that's bugging me is dessert. Dessert is my thing that I do, that my family doesn't feel the need to tell me I don't need to do. With Grandpa it was easy. My great-aunt in northern CA used to make these huge chocolate chip-oatmeal cookies in quantity once a year or so and send a shoeboxful down here, and he would hoard them on the top shelf of the pantry where nobody else but my dad could reach them. The aunt in question died 10-15 years ago, but I weaseled the recipe out of the cousins and made a ton of the cookies for the memorial, and everybody who was in the know said it was perfect that I made them. But I can't remember what Grandma's favorite dessert was, or if she had one, and that bothers me. I think it was angel food cake, with strawberries if they were in season. My mom says my sister has become the cake queen so she'll probably make it. But then what do I do? And what if we have the wrong idea? Will someone come up to me and say something about what they wished was on the buffet, because the cookies were just so special, and I'll realize I don't remember the way I should?
Strike that. I don't remember the way I should. I don't think we ever really do.
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no subject
Date: 2005-05-28 06:28 pm (UTC)<hug> :-(
no subject
Date: 2005-05-29 07:41 am (UTC)<big hug right back> Thank you. A lot.
no subject
Date: 2005-06-02 01:49 pm (UTC)I'm not sure you ever can. My Dad finally had to say it for me one Mother's Day when he was missing his mom pretty badly. I think they know, they're just dealing with their own grief when it finally does happen.
As for the funeral baking, I'm sure you'll ace it. Dessert is the best comfort food.