Today...

*Updated With Photos* Is the day my Ma-Ma died, six years ago. In three days, it will be one year that my Pa-Pa died and three days after that, is my Ma-Ma's birthday. I always confuse her birthday with the year she was born. She was born in the year 1920 and I always think of "20" as the day she was born. Then I remember she is (was?) 50 years older than me, just like my mom is 50 years older than Nate. It was raining the day she died, just like it is today. I remember it very vividly as I had been called home from a trip to Michigan and I saw her in Intensive Care, which was a running joke in my family since it was in ICU after her aortic bi-fem bypass that I passed out. I wasn't expecting her to be intubated and unresponsive when I saw her and after a long day of college classes, working, minimal food, and the emotion... I just couldn't get out of the room fast enough. Not fast enough to the point I told her I would be right back and perhaps I squeezed her hand a bit too hard but her eyes flew open and Nanner hit the floor. LOL!! I laugh now and she always asked me after that if I was okay to visit her in the hospital. I told her, "So long as its not ICU." But I did see her in ICU, and she was intubated but she knew me and she tried to talk to me but they were getting ready to do her dialysis which involved sticking a needle in her shunt which... Nanner can't handle. I took her hand and looked into her eyes as she mouthed around the tube and I said, "I know you love me." Those were the last words we ever shared. My Ma-Ma was a strong, opinionated woman. I have a lot of her in me. Enough that I'm cognizant of her strengths and her flaws and how those flaws affected my mom and her sisters. I miss her to this day and perhaps didn't realize how much until I started writing this. I know that on her birthday, it will be six years that I signed the contract to buy my house. My house was her gift to me. My house was exactly what I had wanted, was exactly where I wanted, was exactly verbatim what I had told her I wanted. I have no doubt that she manipulated and/or influenced the factors which lead me to where I am today. I don't care what anyone else thinks. I know. Just as my grandfather told my mom that the morning after her death he awoke to the sound of her calling his name. Just as I know that she came to visit me right after her death and let me hear her laughter so that I knew she was okay. Just as I know it was her spirit in my living room in the form of a sparkle of light. Just as I know the doe I saw on Christmas Day in my grandfather's yard was her spirit, was her sign to me, that was still here and... she was coming for him. My Pa-Pa died on April 15th last year. I don't recall if I blogged about the last time I saw him or not. Regardless, Lex and I were seeing each other at the time and I had the feeling that I should go see my Pa-Pa as he had been bragging about his church (the same "Fruit of a Christian" church) and something (someone?) told me I had better go see him because if I didn't the next time I would see him would be in that church but he would be dead. And I'll be damned! If I hadn't seen him that Sunday, the next time I saw him would have been at his wake, in that church. Now, my Pa-Pa was a different type person. Old school stoic, but loving. Quiet but stern. I loved him but my relationship with him was completely different than with my Ma-Ma. The family said that his death was just an early birthday present for my Ma-Ma. My grandparents grew up a few doors down from each other and, yes, as I've said before, were related, quite closely. As you can tell, that didn't stop them. My Ma-Ma told my Pa-Pa as they walked home from school one day on a rocky dirt road that when she got old enough she was going to marry him. She moved out of her home at the age of 16 to live with him and they moved to the area where my Mom and her siblings were born. I can remember her meeting him at the door and kissing him as he came home from work. I remember him holding her hand and crying after the surgery to implant her dialysis shunt because she couldn't have any pain medication. They spent their entire lives together. The five years in between their deaths, in some ways, was cruel. I cry for the beauty of seeing, in my mind's eye, them walking down that rocky dirt road together, holding hands, young and in love and my Ma-Ma looking at my Pa-Pa and saying... "See Archie, I told you I was gonna marry you." My Pa-Pa - 1936 My Ma-Ma - 1936