Death- the last sleep? No the final Awakening
-Walter Scott

My 87 year old grandmother passed away last night. She has been in an assisted living facility for over ten years, and her health has been rapidly deteriorating over the past two weeks. While it is hard to see someone pass from this life, there is some comfort when you see an end to the suffering. She suffered from Alzheimer’s disease and hadn’t known me for many years. She never knew my children.

It was the first time that I had been present when a person passed away. Working in a hospital with trauma patients I had been around people when they have given their ‘death rattle’, but quickly left the room to allow family members to share the last moments with their loved ones. I was in my grandmother’s room with my mother, her cousin, my sister Kat and Patrick when grandma drew her last breath. I was worried that Patrick would be upset by the process, but he wasn’t. He had been playing with a wheelchair, undoubtedly trying to devise a way to take it apart, but when grandma passed he stopped and sat on the floor, reverent. The whole room had suddenly become very peaceful. Grandma had been taking slow, pained breaths for quite some time, and when they stopped, we all knew without speaking. My mother sat on the bed quietly weeping. Patrick stood and approached her, placing a hand on her knee and quietly saying “It’s okay Grandma. I’m sure she went to heaven.”

I was grateful that I was able to be present when she passed away. It was nice to get a chance to say goodbye, even if she wasn’t able to hear me. Fifteen years ago when her husband Ted passed away, he came in from shoveling snow, sat down and died from a massive myocardial infarction. It was sudden, and I wished that I had been given the chance to see him one more time. Years later I learned that when he was child Ted’s father had also died of a sudden massive heart attack.

As we get ready for funeral arrangements I find myself thinking about all of the things about Marjorie Briggs Mudge that made me laugh. We were never as close to my mother’s family, and did not have many memories to time with them. But the times we did have provided lasting memories. The most important to me is when we traveled to Vancouver to attend the World Fair in 1986. This marked the only time that we ever went on vacation with the Mudges. They were incredibly frugal people, and packed sandwiches and veggies into the park every day. While we were trying foods from all over the world I watched grandpa choke down celery sticks until the last day in the park, when he forsook his packed food in favor of, as he put it, “real food.”

Grandma’s frugality became very apparent at Christmas, a time they spent at our house every year. We would be chastised for ripping the wrapping paper when opening our Christmas presents, and Grandma carefully folded the paper, boxes and even tissue for future use.

Marge also didn’t allow us to waste food. (This is among my all time favorite stories). When Chas was born the Mudges came to stay with us while Mom was in the hospital. For dinner she made frozen fish sticks, which were, along with tomatoes, the bane of our existence. Alley and I choked ours down, knowing that we wouldn’t be able to leave the table until we did. Beckie was a bit more stubborn, and sat there staring at the deep-fried sticks and refusing to eat. Finally Beckie was sent to her room, presumably to go without dinner for the rest of the night and with a good tongue lashing. Ten minutes later Grandma summoned Beckie back to the kitchen with an apology for the things that she said. “I’ve even made you a nice shake.” She told the six year old. Beckie took one swig of the shake and learned that the uneaten fish sticks had been blended up with some sugar and milk. Beckie vomited in the kitchen, for which she was punished again. If you know my sister, please don’t mention this episode. It is still a sensitive story twenty years later.

Grandma also hated losing. When we would play board games she would do anything to win. Once when we were playing Scattergories she had to come up with something that hangs on the wall. The letter was “H”, but Grandma wanted to say “pictures” so she submitted the word “Hictures”. We vetoed the entry and did not award a point. She invented several other strange words.

Thinking of these and other funny stories about Grandma makes me hope that when I pass from this life to the next that people won’t mourn, but remember the fun times they had with me, or at least the positives.