The long awaited phone call

I've waited ten years for the phone call that would come from relatives who do not speak to me or my family any more, to tell us that my maternal grandmother is dying. She has Alzheimer's. This is the end of the road and even though we parted years ago (living so far apart and her not being able to recognize me anyway), it's still more difficult than I imagined. She's not dead yet but she will be soon. I told my mother not to call me and tell me. I'm not sure for who my heart is crying right now, my mother (who is losing her best friend) or me (who's losing the grandmother I love dearly).

My Dida. That's who she is, was, and always will be. She was a woman of enormous strength in a world that offered women very little choice. She did the impossible and it's because of her strength that I am even here or have come as far as I have. I wonder if the women (the daughters and granddaughters) she is leaving behind even knows or understands her true worth. She was the proverbs 31st woman to me even if she did leave her husband with six children in tow. She worked and raised them (however stupidly they behaved later in life) all by herself in a society that was anything but kind to single mothers.

God I miss her so much. My one great heartache is that she didn't get to lay eyes on her great-grandson, to see his beautiful face. But I know she's going home and when she does, she'll look down from heaven and see him. I just wish I could have watched her face or seen her hold him. I just wish he could have known who she was, where he comes from. My son is called Madison (in Old English it means "son of the mighty warrior"), I wish he could have known the line of warriors that came before him.

She's still there but her brain has been slowly dying and now she's finally done. I've waited ten years for this moment and now that it's here, I find the taste bitter. There is no sweetness in this bitter nectar. Yet, feast on it I must. Not out of choice but out of necessity. This is a rite of passage and quite frankly it sucks!

Sincerely Yours