{"id":7404,"date":"2017-10-22T10:37:31","date_gmt":"2017-10-22T16:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/?p=7404"},"modified":"2017-10-22T10:42:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-22T16:42:47","slug":"so-long-margaret-jean","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theogeo.com\/blog\/the-family\/so-long-margaret-jean\/","title":{"rendered":"So long, Margaret Jean"},"content":{"rendered":"

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My grandmother died Oct. 10. She’d spent the last few arduous months in and out of the hospital and back to the nursing home, then back to the hospital, battling rounds of infections and pain that kept her from resting peacefully enough to heal. She had fallen and hurt her shoulder and spine a couple of months ago and it just snowballed from there. She’d been in declining health for a couple of years, her hearing and sight deteriorated to the point where she needed you to get up real close and yell in her face for her to know who you were and what you were saying. <\/p>\n

It was a frustrating end for a woman so independent. <\/p>\n

She was ready to go, though. That’s what she said when I visited her a month or so before she died. She had just been discharged from the hospital and moved into her new room at the nursing home. She hadn’t yet realized that she wasn’t going back to her house ever again. I think she suspected but she wasn’t ready to believe it. She missed her dog, Sal. My aunt brought him by sometimes to visit.<\/p>\n

Grandmaw told me she was proud of her life, that she’d had a good, full life. And she was ready to meet Jesus. She seemed in decent spirits that day, enough to flirt with the cute young physical therapist wearing a pink shirt. But she seemed resigned, too. It was hard to hear, hard to see, hard to move. She had hurt her shoulder in her fall so badly that coughing \u2014 which she desperately needed to do to get over a sinus and chest infection \u2014\u00a0was excruciating.<\/p>\n

I’ve been a terrible granddaughter the past few years. My own life’s twists and turns ate up all my time and energy and I didn’t make the effort to call or visit as much as I should have. But I think she knew I loved her. And that Holden loved her. She and he had something special. She cracked him up like no one else could.<\/p>\n

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