Continuity

My grandmother, my father's mother and my last remaining grandparent, passed away yesterday morning. It was not unexpected and she had been suffering from late stage Alzheimer's for a long time. It's still sad, hard to process, and hard to think "what now" for my dad, his sister, and her husband who have all been on the front lines for Mam-aw for years now. She died without life insurance, without fully owning her once-owned home due to poor decisions made when she was getting sick, and my aunt and uncle have been unemployed, both with health problems, living with and caring for her full time. The empathetic "what now" resounds.

I have had a few moments of personal grief, but these things are slow for me. More than sadness, I have had this pervasive sense of everything being eerie. My grandmother was clinging to life Sunday afternoon. I went and prayed at her bedside, knowing I was probably saying goodbye. I was in her house. Now I know that house won't be in my family anymore. Beyond petty financial concerns born of the fact that we're all pretty broke, it's just sad.

I don't have a Mam-aw's house anymore.

But it didn't drop off the Earth. That's what keeps getting to me. The way everything continues except for her. The way everything continues except for my dad and his sister and her husband taking care of her. Everything continues. There are tomatoes on the counter, mottled green and red, and they were alive when Mam-aw was, on the vine. They fell before she did. They were there this weekend, intended to become fried green tomatoes, but they didn't. They might still become something else.

Now, my grandmother will never become something else ever again. I believe in souls. I hope she is present in heaven with God, with my step-grandfather again, that she is at peace. But whatever happens at death, it has happened to her, and the world kept happening. I went to work. When I'm busy nothing is different. Things kept happening, even when she stopped.