In two hours and thirty-one minutes my grandmother will have passed away exactly a week ago. It feels like she has been gone for so much longer then that and at the same time, I keep waiting for her to walk through the front door.
This past week wasn't hard until this morning. Until this morning I was busy designing prayer cards and programs and making the slideshow for the reception. I was too distracted with the laughter and the constant talking over one another that all families inherently do. I was busy eating good food and drinking good coffee to notice how different things were. Until this morning...
This morning the house was quiet. I got to sleep in and when I did finally wake up it was to the silence of the house. Over the last few weeks I had gotten used to waking to the fresh smell of coffee, and that was gone too. In a matter of hours my whole world had been turned upside down. The dust remained unsettled for what felt like forever, and then overnight it all settled into almost the exact place it had been prior to being disturbed. Life is back to normal, but normal has completely changed.
I look back over the last ten months with amazement. I am amazed at the resilience of my family and of myself. I am amazed at the strength of my grandmother right up until her final breath, a moment she and God alone chose. But I think the thing that I stand in awe of most is that I kept expecting myself to regret this, to want to take back my decision and leave LA as if nothing happened, and I didn't. I thought I would be broken by the notion of living with someone with cancer, that I would have reached the point of it being unbearable early on and would've walked away. I never did. No matter how hard it got, or how often I said, "I just want to go home," I never saw myself anywhere other than here. I think more importantly then me feeling like I needed to be here, I WANTED to be here. I wanted to be here for every minute of this entire bittersweet journey.
My grandmother spent my whole life letting me know that I was a priority. Christmas', birthdays, summer vacations, she never missed anything without a really, really good reason! If I needed something she did whatever it took and I never had to ask twice. No sacrifice was too great. When I decided to move she wasn't the priority, but when I got to LA my priorities changed. The sacrifice I made was not too great, and what made it easier was that she tried to talk me out of it. She didn't want to need me, and there were plenty of times where she hated that she did. Selfishly, I am grateful for every single one of those moments. I wanted her to need me and to know that she didn't have to ask twice. I wanted her to know that I loved her as much as she loved me my entire life.
I don't know how I did what I did and I don't really know why I did it other than she would've done the same for me. AND I wanted to.
Patricia Jean Ibrao would have given me the world if I had asked for it, but what she gave me over the last ten months is far better than the world. She gave me her, on her best day and her worst. At her moments of greatest strength and those of ultimate weakness. She gave me herself when she was angry and when she was afraid. When she was certain and unsure. She let me share in all those moments and each one she approached with grace, dignity, and strength.. I was never living with someone who was dying from cancer, I was living with someone who was living with it.
Ten months ago I didn't know it, but the last ten months have been exactly what I wanted.
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