Funeral Day

The funeral was today.

We said our Good Byes to Nan.
She is finally at peace, free forever more.

I was surprisingly calm today. I did not cry. I wanted to be strong, and i was, but i did think i would have cried.
But i didn’t.

The Uncle and Aunt who have been nasty towards my family and i did not talk to us at all today.
One asked me to go and view Nan’s body but i said No. I know Nan did NOT want an open casket/viewing so i respected her wishes.

I don’t know if it has completely sunk in… or if it is going to hit me like a freight train in the future sometime… i guess time will tell and only then will i know what i am feeling.

She is free.

I received the phone call from the hospital in the early hours of the morning. Nan had passed away.

She is now free. Free from pain. Free from being force fed. Free from having to live because some people were not willing to accept the fact she was ready to go.

I was told she was unconscious for about the last 12 hours. This is comforting for me to know as i believe it made the transition into her next life a calmer one for her.

I have always been one who likes to know information, who likes details.
I would love to know the exact time she passed. I would love to know what her final day was like. I would love to find out what her final medical results were. I would love to know exactly where the cancer had spread.
I doubt i will ever get this exact information. It is something i will have to live with for the rest of my life.

But one thing is for sure.

I know i was ALWAYS honest with everyone.

I know i ALWAYS gave Nan my full attention and care when i was looking after her; not just in these most recent weeks & months but for all my life.
I have helped her with lots of things since i was a little girl and i can live my life knowing i always did the most i could for Nan and i know she appreciated everything i did for her.

 

I love you so much Nan.
May you now fly free.

The clock is ticking…

I heard from someone today that Nan was not in a very good way at all so i rang the hospital to see if they could give me any news.

I spoke to a lovely nurse who had read through the files and notes and knew what i had done and knew the predicament i was currently in.
She informed me that the priest had been called to see Nan and Nan’s condition has worsened quite a bit over the past 24hours.
She has been moved into a single bed room.

Now i just wait.
I wait for “the phone call”.
The call to inform me that my darling Nan has passed n, that she is now free and up there with her husband and our pets and other family members.

Without sounding horrible, i hope she passes soon.
However…
The greedy side of me wants her to stay here on Earth until my Mum can get to see her (hopefully tomorrow) and give her the two letters that Nan’s sister has written to her.
I was speaking to the nurse about the letters, saying if Nan is still with us, how i’d really appreciate it if a nurse/volunteer/social worker could read the two letters out to Nan. I know both Nan and her sister would really appreciate it. She said she would try and make that happen.

Until then…
the clock will continue to tick tock… tick tock… tick tock…

It’s getting close now…

I received two phone calls yesterday.
One from my Nan’s sister saying she had received a phone call saying that my Nan’s health has been deteriorating and that she is now needing strong painkillers at least every 2 hours; the second from another 2 relatives (via a “speaker phone chat”) letting me know that the cancer has now spread throughout Nan’s body, into not only more bones but also soft tissue and other organs. She has started hallucinating again, quite badly this time and is talking a lot of gibberish (possibly due to the pain relief she is on or maybe the hallucinations?).

No one could say how long she is expected to last for now, but i hope for her sake, that it isn’t too much longer as she has been saying she is ready to die for the past 5+ weeks.
I hate knowing that i have been threatened with violence by some family members if they find out i visit Nan. I don’t want them to think they have “won”, as they haven’t, i just don’t know if i want to see Nan now. In a way i do want to as i would love to have some “us time” to let her know how much i love her and just to be there with her for a little while but on the other hand, with what i have been told about her most recent health status and state of mind, i don’t think i do want to have this new memory of her. I think i would just prefer to remember her how i last saw her and moreso, about those weeks we spent together where i was able to be an extension of her and be able to care for her in between her hospital stays.

Although some people have tried to make these past few months hell for me, they have not won, nor will they get on top of me in the future.
I will not allow their childish ways to make me less of a human.
I will not let their immaturity get the better of me.

I know that what i have done for Nan over the past countless number of years (but mostly the past 2-3 years) will always be appreciated by Nan and also other family and friends who realise just how much i have actually done for her.

Most of all though, i feel so very lucky that i have spent a great deal of my life with Nan, having her to talk to whenever i wanted to, being able to have her as the first person i go to if i needed someone or if i wanted advice or needed to know how to do something.
Nan taught me so much about life, she taught me how to cook, how to clean, she taught me patience, perseverance, love, courage, she taught me to not judge a book by it’s cover, most importantly though- she taught me how to believe in myself.

 

Fluid Rocks

It sounds like it can’t be true, but that is how i would explain how i am feeling at the moment.

I feel like a rock as i have to be strong at the moment, i am trying my hardest to stay strong and not fall apart while constantly pulling myself together so i don’t fall apart in front of my children…
YET…
Fluid as i feel like i am falling apart, like i can’t contain myself. Like i can’t keep myself in one piece.
Like water in a broken glass, you can fill it up, but it will leak, water will spill out uncontrolled. I can’t seem to keep my feelings to myself. I know it is good to express oneself, but when all i can think of at the moment is negative emotions and feelings, i feel it is is a bad thing.

I have made contact with my psychologist again, for the first time this year and it was good to be able to talk freely without any judgement.
We have agreed to meet on a regular basis now with me being able to have impromptu sessions between our scheduled sessions if i feel i need them.

I scare myself knowing that i still have so much hatred within me. I am having flashbacks of moments in time from my childhood. Moments that i must have blocked out of my memory… until now.
Now they are coming back to haunt me. Coming back to taunt me and make me constantly question myself and everything i do.

I have allowed myself to empathise with those who have hurt me in recent weeks. I can understand why they are acting how they are. They are scared, they are hurting, unable to express how they are feeling for fear of not being taken seriously bu those who look up to them. I am sure that is why they are gossiping and spreading rumours about me and my family. Why they have turned my whole family against me. Every. Blood. Relative.

I have come to terms with my Nan being at the end of her life. I find it comforting knowing that she was able to see everyone she wanted to see and that she was able to do everything that she wanted to get done. Well, that’s what she told me, anyway.
I feel so very lucky to have been able to step into the role as her carer. I was an extension of her body. Doing things for her that she wasn’t able to do for herself.

I just want to feel at peace with myself but i don’t know where to start. I don’t know where to turn.

21st Century Brainwashing.

Unfortunately it does still exist.

The Uncle and Aunt who were treating me like rubbish have been brainwashing my Nan and the rest of my family over the past few weeks.

Out if at least 70 people (50 of them blood related), there is now only one person that i think i can believe and trust (apart from my husband).
All the others have been told not to trust me, they have been told that i am the cause of Nan’s ill health, that i am the reason why all the bad things have been happening to not only her, but to other family too.

Even my own mother no longer trusts me. To the point of where she was agreeable to letting her 2 bossy siblings change the locks so i no longer have access to what personal belongings i have left in my childhood bedroom.
I want to get the rest of my belongings out of the house and back here where i can go through it all and store what has to be stored.

I very much doubt Nan is even aware that her set of house keys no longer fit her door locks.

This is beyond a joke. It is disgusting that people can treat their own family like this.

I am glad that i am not one to listen to lies and take it as gospel. I know what the truth is. The truth will eventually come out and those who started the gossip and rumours will not know what to do or say once the rest of their family wake up to their tactics.

I am now happy that i spoke up for Nan when she needed me most. It has all fallen on deaf ears though as they have also brainwashed Nan. How two people could brainwash their own Mother at the end of her life is beyond comprehension, but it has happened.

I was able to see Nan one last time last week, but only for a few minutes.
The terror and fear in her eyes was heart-breaking. She kept asking “Are they still here?” and constantly repeated “You can only stay 5 minutes, you can’t be here more than 5 minutes. You’re just a grandchild, you can’t stay more than 5 minutes.”

It tore at my heart.
These words were not coming from my Nan. She would never say anything like that to ANY of her Grandkids, let alone me.
Someone has been putting those phrases into her head, someone has been saying something to her where she feels that saying those things will make things better for her.

I just wish i had hard evidence to prove it.

My Aunt and Uncle are now spoon feeding her in hospital. They are not even allowing her the chance to feed herself, they are simply shoveling food into her each meal time and telling her that if she eats up, she’ll get better.

I have been led to understand that the opposite is true. She should now be eating less as she is at the end-of-life stage. It is now time for her to listen to her body, just eat when she feels like it, rest and sleep if she wants to, just let things happen.
This is natural, It’s nothing to be scared of.
Why would the Palliative Care staff tell Nan and I one thing but tell the rest of the family the opposite?