Crafty Quackery: Not the kind of post you are used to, but I need to share

**I wrote this about a week after my Grammie's funeral. It has taken me a while to actually post this since I wanted to include pictures. And I made sure to include a lot of them.**

This has been a very rough month.

I completed a second interview that I thought was very very good. I knew that I had tough competition; however I felt I was the best candidate. A week or so later I found out that I didn’t get the job as I had been hoping. But that was just as well since I was called to come home and see my Grammie.

It was a very nice visit even though she was in Hospice with the plan of getting well enough to go home. She would have told anyone and everyone that she was just there to get better and go home. We just didn’t realize the home she was referring too was the home in the sky with all of her brothers and sisters.

I found it funny, along with my mom, that she declared that she didn’t want that "oxycodone" stuff again. She had been given it to assist with a breathing attach she had been having. She did not want to “become addicted to the stuff”. My mom’s thought was, “Well if it helps you feel good for the next few months, why not?”. Grammies desire to know exactly what was being put into her body stayed with her until the end, refusing medication that was not necessary.

The hardest part was that she passed away on Mother’s Day and Jon and I had left the day before. It was very hard to hear but I knew that even though she had not been in physical pain, she must have been mentally in anguish. She was always very independent and able to think her way into solutions for just about anything. But, here she was with something she was unable to think up a solution for, her heart.

My Uncle had been staying with her for just about every moment she was in Hospice. I am sure that had to be extremely difficult to see your very strong mother laying in a hospital bed waiting for her last breath. I am praying that day does not come to my sisters and I for a very long time.

It was over a week before we had the funeral. Grammie made one last trip up to her hometown, Grundy Virginia. It was very hard thinking about going over to her house, across the street and two houses down from my parents, and her not being there. Jon was able to take the time off of work (again) to be with me. Staci scheduled her flight up there with us. It was a rather uneventful trip up, unlike the trip my Uncle had just a few hours later.

It was really weird to be in Grundy again. The last time I had been there was for my Granddaddy’s funeral. Aunt Eddie and Aunt Fay were still living in their house next to Hardee’s and there was a lot of family and friends to see before and after the funeral. I almost felt sorry for my Grammie for the lack of people that came to her funeral. But she did live a long life and all her sisters were much older than her so it makes sense the amount of people attending to be less.

That is not saying the quality of people that attended was less, which was definitely not the case. We had the husband and wife that have been living at the holler (the home place where my Grammie and all her family lived) for the last 40 some years, Aunt Fern’s sister and nieces (my mom so loved meeting them and made the comment that it made it feel like Aunt Fern was there), Uncle Hank’s second (and seemingly much cooler) wife, Cousin Chris and her husband, Mrs. Sue, and others that I was too sad to speak with during the day’s events. Their presence let me know that Grammie meant a lot to many different people. It is hard to think about the fact she is gone.

It is comforting to know that she and Granddaddy are back together. However, it is very hard for me to think about their bodies being buried underground forever. That most likely no one will go back to Grundy to visit them, to be forever laying there waiting for visitors. I have decided I don’t want that for myself.

For how hard it was to experience for the fourth time, it was easier because family was there. And easier for me knowing that she was not going alone. Unfortunately Jill was not able to come due to weather but I knew she was there in her thoughts.

Since getting back it seems that every day there is a reminder that she is gone. Several TV shows reference death of a loved one (Modern Family was the death of the grandmother = that wasn’t a great topic for me to watch but I have to say I liked the ending).

I attended the wonderful baby shower for a friend a week ago. Her mom went all out on decorations and making sure there was food for everyone to eat (even me!). As my friend was opening her gifts she thanked her grandmother and the exchange back and forth hit me. I wouldn’t have any grandparents at my baby shower… or my wedding… or any other significant event in my life. I did my best not to start bawling since it was not the time for that and attempted to enjoy the rest of the shower and I did.

But it seems those moments of sharp realization come out of left field and I am never ready for them. It sounds terrible to say it, but I hope they lessen with time, only so that I can think of her without my eyes stinging and my throat tightening.