Keeping Vigil

First, I have no idea why that bloody text in the last post is so big.  

My goals for the weekend include finishing this infernal project and possibly watching Pan's Labyrinth.  Today I went with Tiffany to a strip of furniture and art galleries between Chicago Ave. and Ohio St. on Franklin St. under the El tracks.  Cool stuff.  Some of it ugly too.

Back to my Christmas Break.  I spent four hours one of my grandma's last nights on earth holding her warm, slightly swollen hand:

She would wake up every 5-10 minutes enough to either moan softly about her pain, halt breathing a little bit, or even open her eyes and look around.  She was still able to talk and see at this point so it was nice spending the time with her.  I was there in case she woke up and needed something, or just didn't wanna feel alone.  She would start awake and I would squeeze her hand and say "its okay grandma, Carl's here."  And Tiffany would chime in "and Tiffany", at least until the last two hours where she fell asleep :)  Until the last half hour, I was dead awake- guess a lot was going on in my head.  Grandma would drift back to sleep.  Once she said "don't you ever sleep?" and I said I needed to watch her get her beauty sleep.  She said "oooooh do I need it bad..." as she went back to sleep.  Another time she opened her eyes and almost sat up because she was startled to see me sitting at her bedside intently watching her sleep.  "Oh Carl you scared me!" She said.  I said many prayers for her, for myself, and all of my family during those hours- not much else was going on then anyway except the background music CD on repeat that ever 45 minutes would make me think it was raining outside.

The other night I spent with her was not under as positive circumstances as before.  That was Friday, and just five days later on Wednesday of last week, I spent a few hours up with my cousin Christine.  (She was the pleasant surprise of the entire week+ experience because I spent a fair amount of time at least in her vicinity and enjoyed it a lot.  I miss her and the many WalMart pizzas we all consumed.)  That day grandma was essentially non-responsive, breathing very heavy and labored, pausing for anywhere from 3-5 seconds between every breathe, so long that every five minutes or so Christine and I would look at each other across the bed waiting for another breathe wondering how many seconds to wait before jumping out of our chairs.  

Thankfully that necessity never came.  I dreaded the possibility something happening on my watch, both because I felt like people would think I had done something wrong, and because I felt I would feel guilty for being there with her when she passed while no one else was.

My mom was the one *lucky* enough to have that experience, alone too, two days later around 3:40am Thursday night/Friday morning depending how you're counting.  We had been keeping 24 hour a day vigil for a week and a half between my dad and Uncle Tony at the hospital and everyone else at Aunt Roe's the week after that, and it was seldom that there weren't at least two people with her with others awake and roaming around.  But perhaps its how she wanted it.

To be continued...