I Hope You Sleep In a Perfect Memory

Yesterday my Mom got a call that she should head down to Orange County. I mentioned in my last post that Boyfriend and I had gone to see my Grandpa in the hospital when we were down on Monday and since then he's taken a turn for the worse. He's sedated and Mom says he looks awful. She said there is probably enough time if we want to drive down and see him one last time, but she wouldn't recommend it because she doesn't want us remembering Grandpa in this way. Once he dies, she and my Dad will stay there for a few days and try and get my grandparent's finances in order and also take my Grandma in to the doctor because it seems like her dementia is getting really bad.

All I'm feeling right now is angry, really, really angry. 1) I'm angry that my Grandpa did this to himself. He always told us he was going to live to be 140 because I think he was afraid to die and when he realized he was getting old he decided to drink his way out so he wouldn't know death was coming. 2) I'm angry at my Grandma for a few different reasons: a) for turning my Grandpa's death in to all about her b) for going back and forth about wanting to live in Stockton near her brothers and away from the unhealthy situation of living with my Uncle c) for not wanting to hold a service for my Grandpa. So what if he doesn't want one? Services are for those left behind, not the dead, anyway. And so what if it's only us there? Funerals are not popularity contests. We will miss him and he is Catholic...doesn't he deserve a mass? d) Even though it's not her fault, I'm mad at my Grandma for losing her mind. I know that is an awful thing to say, but she acts so helpless and is so dramatic and she calls us with these hospital updates and gets all the facts wrong so we never really know what is going on. 3) I'm mad at my Uncle. He is miserable living with my grandparents and all they do is fight and yell and talk over each other all day long, but he won't move out. He won't give my Grandma his blessing, so to speak, to move up to Stockton because he doesn't want the gravy train to leave him behind. He also wants my Grandma to stay in the house because she and my Grandpa told him, in an act of total stupidity, that when they were both gone that he would get their house so now I think he's banking on that, which won't happen if Grandma sells the house and then lives in the assisted care apartments. 4) I'm mad at all three of them for the way they've allowed this situation to play out. Boyfriend's grandparents all seem to possess this quiet dignity that my extended family members must have missed out on when God was handing it out. Why do they have to be so weird and dramatic and stubborn? Why can't we rely on them to give us accurate hospital updates? Why can't we have a funeral like normal people? Why does everything have to be so difficult?

Ok, well enough with my dramatics or I'm just as bad as the people I'm bitching about! Since there isn't going to be a funeral, I will share with you all what I would have shared about my Grandpa if there had been one:

My Grandpa is/was a pretty reserved kind of guy. He wasn't the hugging, heart-to-heart kind of grandpa, but he did take us fishing a few times, which was cool because it was something he really enjoyed doing and he did take us rock collecting at the beach, which we really loved, especially when he would polish them in his machine for us, and he did on a few occasions let us put makeup on him and do his hair, which looking back on, I can't ever believe he let us do, especially when we would twist up his hair and put it in barrettes and comment about how his hair was the texture and consistency of Troll hair! And that's what I would've shared and it's what I got to tell him one last time this Christmas, and for that I am thankful.

Hope you all are having a good weekend. Once we get things figured out around here, Boyfriend and I are taking off to walk the Golden Gate Bridge hopefully and then up for two days in to Oregon and then back down the Northern California coast. After that, we will only have about two weeks left in California, before we head back out to Australia.