You Can’t Take a Vacation from Death

This post is about the death reference I made in another entry — I feel like it deserves a more in-depth discussion than just a passing sentence or two in a vacation post.

Though we had a great vacation (as I’m sure ya’ll are sick of hearing about at this point), it was definitely peppered with sadness and guilt.

Yes, guilt.

Five people died this past week.

1. We heard about Farrah Fawcett’s death shortly before we left. This announcement was expected as the poor woman had been battling cancer for quite some time. I pitied the woman. Not only because of her cancer, but because she seemingly got more and more wacky over the years. Perhaps her behavioral changes can be blamed on her cancer treatments, I don’t know. But it got to the point where I could barely stomach watching her speak – she just seemed so …. sad, spacey and child like.

2. Ed Mcmahon died. Does anyone even know that? Poor Ed had the misfortune to die, of a ripe old age of 86 I might add, right around the same time as another celebrity and has completely been forgotten because of it. Poor Ed. I was saddened to hear of his passing – I remember watching him every night on the Johnny Carson show because yes, I’m THAT old and laughing at his goofy side-kick antics. I’m glad the man had lived a long life.

3. Michael Jackson – We were flipping through TV stations in our cabin one night when we got wind that MJ was gravelly ill and had been taken to the hospital. The next time we heard anything about him, he had passed away. We were shocked, as was the rest of the world. It’s always hard to digest something this sudden and this tragic. And it was certainly sad, but we weren’t devastated like a large portion of the population apparently is.

I’ve largely ignored all of the media hype surrounding MJ’s death. Well, to be perfectly honest, I pretty much ignore all media hype because that’s what it is, hype, a calculated method of getting ratings. It’s disgusting. But that’s neither here nor there. So the fact that MJ’s death is dominating the news right now doesn’t surprise me one bit – it’s popular, it’ll help ratings and it helps distract people from what’s really important – say, what’s going on with our government and our country right now.

In fact, I found a post on Sacred and Profane that sums my feelings up about Michael Jackson’s death perfectly.

It’s sad whenever ANYONE dies. Unfortunately (or fortunately), life goes on.

4. We learned of Billy Mays’ sudden death in the Miami airport. We had purchased an Internet “day” pass and Dude was checking his forums when an announcement about Billy Mays’ death caught his attention. I immediately suggested that it was probably a hoax and we Googled for a more reputable source.

It was indeed true. And yet another shock – so many dying in one week!

5. But the truly shocking part of this week came Thursday night while we were in our cabin. I was positioning the boys in order to take a picture of the latest towel animal (as you can see, they were in high spirits) and Kevin was calling our voice mail to see if there were any messages.

Look past the boys silliness and see Kevin in the background on his phone?

That’s when we found out that Nanny had died.

Nanny is Kevin’s grandmother. She was 86 (?) and her health had been failing her for a number of years. Apparently, she overdosed on her medication – she had been on 30 different types of drugs at the time – and had a stroke.

She lost consciousness and never woke up. She passed away Tuesday, June 23rd. We didn’t know about it until Thursday, June 25th. We were in Mexico at the time and we didn’t quite know what to do. Should we fly back for the funeral which was scheduled for that Saturday? We were on the tiny island of Cozumel and we felt … stuck.

Kevin and I agonized over what to do. In the end, we decided not to do anything. Nanny was gone and she would have wanted us to just stay put.

We feel guilty for missing her funeral. However, I was a bit relieved that we did because we would have had to sit through a “don’t be sad, Edith is in heaven now” sermon and well, she’s not. She’s asleep in her grave awaiting the return of Christ. (More on this later).

We didn’t tell the boys. They were having such a good time we didn’t want to dampen their spirits. Especially since we couldn’t DO anything about it.

The boys found out about Nanny’s death at the Miami airport through a message that Kevin had received from his sister on Facebook.

They were shocked and numb the rest of the trip home.

Even though we were all braced for her death because of her failing health, the fact that she went so suddenly and never woke up was still a shock.

We never had a chance to say goodbye. Even though Kevin had been over to her house the previous week to take her son (who is mentally challenged) to a car show. Only, he had his facts wrong and the car show wasn’t scheduled for that day, so Kevin had a chance to sit and have a chat with his grandmother.

We believe that was God’s way of allowing him to say goodbye to her.

We went to visit her grave the day after we returned (we got into town very late). It wasn’t hard to find her, it was the freshest grave in the area. We were all silent and lost in our own thoughts as we looked down upon her resting spot.

The boys, nor Kevin, ever cried, but they did tear up. Me? I just stared, dry-eyed and a bit shocked by everything. I think I’m still numb. I honestly don’t think it’s hit me yet.

When my mom’s mom passed away, I cried, hard. I cried because I would miss my grandmother, but I cried mostly for my mother. I could see how much she was hurting and my heart broke for her. I’ve never been able to handle seeing my mother in any sort of distress.

Sometimes I wonder at my reaction to death. I’m sad, of course, but it’s like I distance myself from it. It doesn’t seem quite …… real to me. I honestly can’t explain it any better than that. I KNOW my loved ones are gone, but still, it just doesn’t seem real.

It’s the oddest feeling.

I honestly think that’s the biggest reason I haven’t allowed myself to get too close to my family – because I’m unconsciously shielding my heart for the day they pass away. I think it’s a survival mechanism and though on the surface that sounds fine, it bothers me. I think it somehow makes me … less human. Definitely cold-hearted.

And it proves something I’ve suspected for a long time – I really do think I’m a hard-hearted person and that realization bothers me on so many levels.

We will always remember Edith for her kindness and willingness to care for children. She was amazing with kids. I’ll never forget how she stepped up and offered to watch Dude when he was a baby so I could continue working. She was so good with him. Dude came home on a monitor (he was a preemie and had sleep apnea, a condition quite common to premature babies) and though others were nervous having to deal with his special needs, she never batted an eye. In fact, she always had a full report for me whenever I picked him up.

Fed him at 10:10, 1:30 and 4:20.
Pooped three times – all normal stools.
Slept three hours
Monitor went off once, false alarm.

And so on.

I used to get a little annoyed at her efficiency, but I always appreciated her efforts and it made me feel like I hadn’t missed so much of his day and it eased my guilt of being away from him just a bit more.

I ended up quitting my job when Dude was about nine months old because Edith’s health wasn’t the greatest and putting my son into daycare simply wasn’t an option.

As a result of Edith watching Dude, they developed a special bond and she always had a soft spot for Dude from that point on. In addition, Edith and I would have long talks whenever I picked Dude up from work and I felt like we had also developed a special relationship.

She was a great woman.

Rest in peace, beautiful Nanny. We will see you soon.