September 29: I started to write the following entry the day after we lost Nonnie. I needed to write it all down - maybe to remember or just simply to do something - the shock that follows an unexpected death can make you feel helpless and lost. I couldn't finish it, but I went back later - a few days after Nonnie's service - and filled in the details. I didn't want to remember, but I couldn't forget. It's too early to tell if it has helped because I still feel the loss every single day. The crying has subsided to occasionally, but the hole seems as if it is growing bigger. My dad says that hole will always be there. September 15: My whole world has just stopped. I feel numb, sick, heartbroken. Yesterday afternoon at 3:15, my grandmother, my Nonnie, passed away. She had suffered a massive hemorrhagic stroke on the morning of September 13 while talking on the phone to her daughter, my Aunt Cindy, at her home in Canada. "I've got to go," she told Cindy, "I've got a pain behind my eye and it's pretty bad." She hung up the phone and when Cindy tried to call back, no one answered. Nonnie told my grandfather, Hal, to go and get her best friend Gerry who lived a few doors down. When Gerry arrived, Nonnie was vomiting and confused. Cindy called again and Gerry answered just as the ambulance arrived.
Nonnie was taken to Kaweah Delta hospital. When she arrived, she was confused but still talking to the doctors. She knew her name and could respond to simple questions, but she couldn't remember exactly where she lived, her phone number, or her children's last names. They sedated her in order to get a CT scan, and that's how she was when I arrived - sedated and unresponsive. My mother was out of town and so was my sister, Julie. I was alone when the doctor came in to show me the CT scan. "This is very serious," he told me. Nonnie's brain showed a massive amount of blood collecting on one side - the same side where she'd suffered her first stroke. Her brain was being compressed. I felt my heart drop to my stomach.
I called my brother Danny in Sacramento, where my sister Julie was also visiting, and told him the news. I tried to hold back my tears as I told him. I wished I had a cigarette even though I don't smoke. I knew how serious it was and I said the words that I had been thinking for the past 15 minutes. "I think this is it." I told Danny.
A few hours later, after my mother had arrived, Nonnie was flown to Modesto Memorial Hospital in the hopes that she would see a neurosurgeon and he would provide more answers on her condition. I didn't drive up but waited for my mom to call with news. Later that evening, I was going crazy. I couldn't wait any longer and called the hospital. My mom said the neurosurgeon told them there was nothing he could do, which we had already figured. Nonnie was on a respirator and had never regained consciousness. My mother's only sibling, her sister Cindy, was in the air, making the trip from Eastern Canada to California. It was a lonely decision. My mother took Nonnie off the respirator. She was told it would possibly be an hour or so before Nonnie stopped breathing, if she breathed on her own at all. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to be with them, but mom said that Nonnie would be gone before I could get up to Modesto. I paced, I cried, I bit my fingernails, and finally went to bed that night only after taking Benadryl - knowing that the next morning, Nonnie would be gone.
On Sunday morning, I tried to call my mom and my sister Julie, but there was no answer. I called Danny's number and my sister-in-law, Stacy, answered. "They're at the hospital," she told me, "and I'm getting ready to go too. There's no change." Amazingly, Nonnie was still breathing on her own 12 hours later. I had to go - I couldn't stand it one second longer. Joe and I scrambled to get people to watch the kids while we threw things in a bag. We didn't talk much the whole way up, not knowing what to expect. But when we arrived, Nonnie was still breathing. We greeted Mom, Steve, Danny and Stacy in the room, but I could hardly stand to look at Nonnie. She was so pale and still, her head to one side and her mouth open, her breathing somewhat labored. I kissed her cheek.
Mom filled us in on the details, which weren't many. Nonnie was holding her own, but they assured her, it was just a matter of time. They decided to move Nonnie out of the ICU and into a private room to wait it out. Nonnie's friend Gerry came in and looked at Nonnie and said to my mom, "She looks different, Jana. She's paler." I looked at Gerry and she whispered to me, "She's not long for this world now." I didn't want to hear it - it even made me a little angry. But she was right. We began to clear out of the room so that they could move her. I was following my mom down the hall when I heard Steve say, "They're not moving her! She's stopped breathing." I grabbed my sister Julie out of the waiting area and we ran back to Nonnie's room. Her breathing had stopped. I grabbed Nonnie's hand and held it and we all began to cry. We couldn't stop the tears or the sobs - such immense sorrow washed over that little room. The nurse came in and told us that we would have to wait until her heart stopped. I held Nonnie's hand and squeezed her wrist until I could feel her pulse. It slowed steadily and after a minute or two, it stopped. "Oh, Nonnie..." I cried.
Almost at that very moment, the hospital chaplain came silently into the room and put his hand on my mother. "Is she gone?" he asked. My mother nodded, "Just now." Then he held my mother's hand and put his other hand on Nonnie and said, "Let's pray her into heaven." I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing that this was exactly what Nonnie would have wanted - all of us praying. I looked at the clock and realized that it was 3:15 when she died - just an hour or so after I arrived. She waited for me, I thought. She waited until we were all here.
Soon after, Julie and I rushed around trying to find Danny who had left the hospital to get something to eat. We met him as he and Stacy were coming back toward the ICU. I shook my head and Julie said, "She's gone." Danny covered his face with his hands and we all hugged each other. The four of us went back to the room so that he could say goodbye, and Danny began to sob. He hugged Nonnie and we all stayed with her awhile. By the time the paperwork was finished and they were ready to take her away, I knew in my heart that she was already gone. I looked back at her body there in the hospital bed and told my mom, "She's not here anymore."
We cried a lot that day - sitting around a table outside the hospital - trying to decide what to do next. My mom was fairly calm, keeping it together for the rest of us like she always does. She and Steve still had to travel to San Francisco to pick up her sister. I was glad she was coming so soon - they were going to need each other. Joe and I drove back to Visalia, and I called other family members on the way to give them the news, including my Gramma Mary - my father's mother. "You're the only grandma I have now." I told her. She laughed and cried at the same time, "Oh, honey, I'm no substitute for Nonnie."
That statement sums it up, I think. There is no substitute for Nonnie. There will always be this giant missing piece - this vital presence - gone from our lives. I still can't fathom that she's gone. I had just talked to her on the phone the night before, inviting her to a fashion-show party I was having at mom's the following Friday. Nonnie loved clothes, and I knew she would enjoy the party. "You're so stylish, Non." I told her that night. She laughed, "Oh, I don't know about that.." Which of course, she did - all of us girls in the family benefited from Nonnie's love of shopping and nice clothes. She often bought things in a size just a bit too large for her tiny frame and would say, "This just doesn't fit me, sweetheart, I want you to try it on." I wore lots of Nonnie clothes and was proud of it. I used to tell people I had just gone shopping in Nonnie's closet. "Go look at those old ladies living around you." I said to her that night. "Do any of them look like you?" She just laughed. "I am proud of the fact that my grandmother is so stylish." I told her. Nonnie was making beans and cornbread for dinner that night, getting the cornbread out of the oven as we talked. I never thought that would be the last time we would speak.
I called her all the time, just like everyone else in our family. And she called us - just to check in on us, or to tell us how much she enjoyed our lunch together, or to find out how Harry's first day of preschool went, or how I was feeling after I'd been sick, or just to say "I'm thinking about you and I love you." Nonnie always called. She was always there. You could count on her and you never doubted that she loved you unconditionally. When you felt bad or down or worried, you could call Nonnie and be reassured. That kind of peace is so precious.
No family party or special occasion was without Nonnie. She had been to my house earlier that week to visit with me. She had just come from getting her nails done and was on her way to Costco. She was always busy - always doing. She played with Harry and let him drink her iced tea, laughing at him. She loved the kids and they loved her. Joe cried at the restaurant on our way home that night saying, "It just makes me so sad that our kids won't get to know her...or how wonderful she was."
That is up to us, I suppose. We have to tell our kids about our wonderful Nonnie. We are her legacy. I feel privileged to have had her in my life for so long. It just wasn't long enough. That is selfish, I know. I would never have wanted Nonnie to suffer through some horrendous illness or disease. But I wish we'd had her longer. Our family needed Nonnie - I needed her. I continue to see her in my mind and I often hear her voice. Nothing profound - just little moments - things she said, what she was wearing on a certain day. I see her giving Harry a drink of tea, walking through my front door, sitting at my mom's kitchen table. It's strange, but everytime I picture her, I see her laughing. Maybe it's because she laughed so much at Harry on that last day I was with her. Or maybe it's because that's how I choose to remember her - smiling and laughing. I miss her...
