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Happy Birthday G-ma
Feb. 29th, 2008 03:48 pmI was ten when my Grandma Burdick passed away. She'd had cancer for a long while, and it wasn't the first time, just the only time she hadn't been able to beat it. She'd had breast cancer long before I was born, perhaps before my mother was born even though I'm not certain. We didn't talk about it and its still not something I feel like I can ask about. A radical mastectomy and chemo (which I can only image was worse in the 50's and 60's than it is now) later and what we were left with was one tough bird of a lady.
By the time I came around (not the first grandchild but the first in nearly a decade) my grandma was a force to be reckoned with. I remember little things mostly. Her hair, and the way she hugged. Watching her crochet or needlepoint or whatever was her hobby at the time. Some of my most treasured possesions are things my grandma made me with her own hands.
The last Christmas we all had together I got a dollhouse that she'd made me, I remember her walking me through it and all the little furniture she'd made as well, as carefully as if it had been a real house. It's a good memory, and I think of it every time I see the doll house (now stored in a closet in my parents house). But now, as an adult I also realize that she must have been sick already and known that she didn't have much time. She was gone by the next October and went fighting to the last.
When I was a child I resented how aware of what was going on I was allowed to be; the weekends spent in the hospital, missing my friends birthday parties and slumber parties and in general not being able to have 'fun' made me resentful. As an adult I still have an aversion to the aniceptic smell of hospitals, a physical response that settles in my gut like bad chinese food, but now I sort of wish I'd been more aware.
I knew Grandma was dying, but I don't think even after she forgot who we were and was too weak for hugs, that it ever really occurred to me that she actually would. That the last hug would actually be the last hadn't entered into my head until my dad told me the next morning that Grandma had gone.
My grandma Burdick could do anything, of this I was certain, and to a degree still am. She was an amazing woman. Young at heart. Born on February 29th, in a leap year and special in every way. I loved her.
It's been nearly twenty years since she died. I still remember how small and lost my mom looked that first morning. I remember the flowers at her memorial and hiding in the bathroom to cry so no one could see me. But I don't remember the amazing woman who was my grandma nearly often enough.
Today is her birthday, she would be eighty four years old, and I'm taking a moment to remember her.
By the time I came around (not the first grandchild but the first in nearly a decade) my grandma was a force to be reckoned with. I remember little things mostly. Her hair, and the way she hugged. Watching her crochet or needlepoint or whatever was her hobby at the time. Some of my most treasured possesions are things my grandma made me with her own hands.
The last Christmas we all had together I got a dollhouse that she'd made me, I remember her walking me through it and all the little furniture she'd made as well, as carefully as if it had been a real house. It's a good memory, and I think of it every time I see the doll house (now stored in a closet in my parents house). But now, as an adult I also realize that she must have been sick already and known that she didn't have much time. She was gone by the next October and went fighting to the last.
When I was a child I resented how aware of what was going on I was allowed to be; the weekends spent in the hospital, missing my friends birthday parties and slumber parties and in general not being able to have 'fun' made me resentful. As an adult I still have an aversion to the aniceptic smell of hospitals, a physical response that settles in my gut like bad chinese food, but now I sort of wish I'd been more aware.
I knew Grandma was dying, but I don't think even after she forgot who we were and was too weak for hugs, that it ever really occurred to me that she actually would. That the last hug would actually be the last hadn't entered into my head until my dad told me the next morning that Grandma had gone.
My grandma Burdick could do anything, of this I was certain, and to a degree still am. She was an amazing woman. Young at heart. Born on February 29th, in a leap year and special in every way. I loved her.
It's been nearly twenty years since she died. I still remember how small and lost my mom looked that first morning. I remember the flowers at her memorial and hiding in the bathroom to cry so no one could see me. But I don't remember the amazing woman who was my grandma nearly often enough.
Today is her birthday, she would be eighty four years old, and I'm taking a moment to remember her.
