"Phone Calls", written February 12, 2006

People get them everyday.
I usually get them as wake up calls, or from drunk friends. Friday I got one from my mom, not unusual.
Except this time it wasn't, "How's school? How drunk did you get last night? How much money do you need now?"
It was, "Come home, they don't think Grandma's going to make it through the night."
It's an odd thing driving somewhere knowing you're going to see someone for the last time.
Going to talk to them for the last time, going to touch them for the last time, going to tell them how much you love them for the last time.
I sat next to my mom at the nursing home while she held my Grandmother's hand and stroked her head. We would watch her inhale, and exhale, then lay motionless and breathless for what seemed like an eternity, then watch the quilt rise and fall again and finally exhale ourselves. Watching every move wondering if it would be her last.
I looked at my Grandmother all night and saw an 88 year old woman in her last days of life. And I cried, as all Parker women do, hysterically. Not out of sadness for her, because this is the way you're supposed to go. Old, surrounded by family, having seen the world, having loved and been loved. I cried for my mom. I cried thinking that in thirty-five years that might be me sitting next to my mom, and I cried thinking that that's not fair. I'm not ready. I don't know how anyone can be ready for that.
My Grandmother met my grandfather in Ontario while he was on leave during the war. They were engaged a week later, and married and moved to Nova Scotia poppin out kids within a year.
They were married until my Grampie died in 1993.
They produced some of the loudest, rudest, drunkest children on the planet I am happy to call my Uncles, my Aunt and my Mother.
My uncles Ted, John and Glen are three of the funniest, strongest men I know. Especially Glen, who lost a son in 2002, who didn't go the right way. He went alone and he went scared. And my only comfort now is that my Grandma is going to be with him, and the family will finally be together in some sense.
My Aunt Barbie has taught me more about acceptance, standing up for what you believe in and true beauty than anyone else in the whole world. I am truly blessed to have her in my life, and my sister Kate and I are hers as much as we are our own parents.
My mother, with one touch, one word, one look, can take any wrong in my life and make my world perfect again. She is my everything. She gets me through my day. She makes me believe in myself. She is my whole universe.
My Grandmother gave these gifts to me, and I stared at her all night and saw all of these people in her face. And I saw myself in her face.
Mom and I sat there all night while she told me stories. About Grammie's life and about her own. And stuff about mine I was too young to remember.
Before I fell asleep, I looked at my Grandma, a woman who has been such a huge part of my life for almost twenty years. Who was the source of so many laughs, so many horrible meals. So many mornings I woke up to hear her singing Danny Boy in the kithcen and wished I would just go deaf. A woman who I have never known life without. And I prayed. I begged God to just take her. No more morphine, no more tubes, no more shots, no more restless nights, no more tears.
And I was mad. I was mad when I woke up in the morning and she was still lying there. Fighting to breathe, wanting to die.
And now we wait. Hours. Days. For the inevitable. For her life to end, and for ours to go on without her, but knowing, the life she had was amazing. And knowing that she made me a better person, and made me who I am today.
So I'm waiting.