The Rantings of a Funked Up Mind

Chapter Four - Death and Guilt, Two Peas in a Pod

This chapter is dedicate to @WhiteCoconut23. And no, I don't need a reason. I just adore you.

------

I had felt lighter the past few days. Talking about my worries about God and whether there was such a thing, had helped me so much. Not because I had figured anything out, but rather, because I had come to understand that many others had not figured it out either. I had some amazing responses from a few brave readers and it meant the world to me.

My brain was buzzing with things to talk about. This whole journal thing was taking over my brain. I had always toyed with the thought of a journal. In fact, my therapist way back, had suggested it. I had scoffed at the idea, at the time, thinking that there was no way it could help me. I realized now that I had been closed-minded and stubborn, not to mention completely wrong.

I had also come to the realization of important it was to tell someone what I thought of their writing when I had the opportunity because they were probably just as insecure as I was, even if their story was fiction and mine wasn't. In the past, I had often just 'liked' a chapter but didn't take the time to insert a comment, despite how much I loved or hated it. I was always too rushed to get through the book. I had a bad habit of not stopping a book once I started and commenting just slowed me down. I vowed to myself not to do that any more. I would take the time because my readers were taking the time for me.

Taking the time.....and there was my next topic. Without even realizing it, my brain made the jump from comments on books, to taking time for things that mattered, to my grandma. With her image behind my eyes, I began my entry.

------

Hello my little darlings. I think the title speaks for itself, so let's get to it, shall we?

When I was younger, I never worried about death. I grew up with only one living grandparent and that was all I knew. As an adult, I learned that this was actually incorrect. I had two more grandparents who both passed when I was about five or so.

I have a vague recollection of seeing an old woman in the hospital once when I was maybe 4 but I never knew who it was until I was much older. It turned out that it was my maternal grandmother who was dying of breast cancer. My dad (post-divorce) took me and my brother to see her before she passed away and told us to never tell my mom. My mom didn't speak to her family and I guess he figured 'grandma' would want to see us before she passed. Around the same time, my paternal granddad passed away as well. I only know this from his grave stone marker. I have no memories of him at all, which considering some of my previously mentioned early and vivid memories, is strange.

My first experience with death that directly affected me, that is, was when my dad's mom (Grammy) died. She had a massive heart attack the night of my last day of high school. I came home from a night out with my boyfriend to received a voice mail of my dad crying and telling me that she was in the hospital and they didn't know if she was going to make it. I remember falling to the floor sobbing and trying to get it together long enough to call my brother and find out what was going on.

It turned out that after 4 codes, they got her heart under control and it was beating fine. The bigger problem was that my dad didn't know CPR and during the time he waited for an ambulance, she as suffered irreversible brain damage. The kicker for me was, I had told them that I would likely come to visit that night and I decided to go the next night instead because I was a selfish little brat. Had I gone, she most likely would have recovered. It was never mentioned by dad and maybe it never occurred to him but that knowledge weighs on me to this day.

When they were convinced there was no possibility of recovery, they 'unplugged' her. They said she would last a few minutes to a few hours. Little did they know that my grammy was a stubborn old bitty and she survived, breathing on her own, for more than a week. It was horrible to see her waste away and I spent time with her every day just wishing I had just five more minutes with her, healthy and awake, so I could tell her how much I loved her and how important she was to me, and how sorry I was for missing her birthday almost a year before. In fact, I wanted to tell her how I had planned to take her out to dinner and bake her a cake in only three weeks time.

I remember almost every minute of the day she finally passed away. I was sitting having a conversation with my great aunt and my boyfriend. Aunt V had said that she was praying that grammy would get better and I told her I didn't think that was going to happen. I told her that I had been praying that God would do what ever he thought was best. I remember my boyfriend (Catholic) scoffing at that and challenging me, since he knew my thoughts on God. I told him it was true that I didn't know if I believed in God but since grammy got sick, I had prayed every night that if He should do whatever He thought was best even if that mean taking her because I didn't want her to suffer.

It was as those words finished exiting my mouth that my grammy's breathing picked up and she started gasping for air. I ran to get her nurses and they told us to leave the room so they could suction her. We went to the waiting room and a few minutes later, one of the nurses came in and told us she was gone. In those few minutes, she left me forever and MY words, the ones in which I had effectively prayed for her death, were the last ones she heard. My heart shatter into a million pieces onto the floor at me feet. I remember yelling and crying. I felt like such a colossal f*ck up. After I compose myself, I went into the room, kissed her and told her goodbye.

The next few days were a blur and I never wanted to crawl into a hole and hide more than I did then. For months afterwards, I had nightmare in which my grammy was rotting in the ground. Even better were to ones where she would random show up in the middle of my dreams and just look at me with so much hate. She would yell at me and tell me how disappointed she was in me. I woke countless night just sobbing.

I look back now and realize that I was just a typical teenager who thought the world revolved around them and that nothing bad would ever happen. I get it, I really do. But, that knowledge will NEVER ease the guilt I feel; the guilt for missing her previous birthday, the guilt for not visiting her that night and the guilt for the last words she heard not being what an amazing woman she was and how much I loved her.

Guilt: What do you do with that? How do you survive it? When you wrong someone who is still here, you can simply apologize. But this guilt, my guilt, it's like that is a physical presence. It sits on your soul and weighs you down. It actually sucks the happiness out of the good things you experience. Like a sponge, it slowly draws away the smiles and light from the happy moments and surrounds them with a gloomy dampness. It festers and rots until there is just a musty, black mess left on your soul. And like that damp, smelly sponge, no matter how you try to remove the damage, you can't.

Okay, I think I have adequately bared my soul for you today. As always, I look forward to your wise words, my little darlings. You are the candlelight in a very dark room. xx  Nina

-----

Baring my soul was draining. It had been a while since I had thought about grammy. Wanting to keep her fresh in my heart, I decided to do something to honor her, instead of simply sitting around missing her presence. I was going to find the old recipe of hers that I wrote out when I was about 8 years old and I was going to make some "grandola bars" (my ship name for gramdma's granola bars). Then, when the kids returned home from camp, I would recount the story (as I did every time I made them) of how I used to make them with her and how I was always so amazed by how strong she was when whipping the ingredients that I could barely manage to stir. It was going to be a good day.

------

A/N: Wow, I can't even...that was emotionally draining, my loves. I hope you can see a little change in Bells mindset. I loved the comments and pm's I got on the God chapter. Please keep them coming!!  dacasabella