not sure how the ending should go.

My grandmother is dying right now. maybe tonight. maybe tomorrow. She has been sick for a very long time with a list of things that are not killing her alone. Her pain has gotten to the phase that managing it is finishing the job that auto-immune disease, a heart condition, osteoporosis, diabetes, long term prednisone, urinary tract infections and depression have been too weak to finish.
I think that by managing her pain this way we are giving her the comfort and dignity that she deserves. I wonder where death starts and where a morphine stupor begins. Is she already mostly gone, and just pops back into this world from the next when we rouse her to offer greetings, a sip of water or to signify our departure for the evening. What will change for her when this is finished? is it a snap from one place to another or even oblivion? is it a fading from one scene to another?

My relationship with her has had many ups and downs. As a young child we were not close, but she was my favourite grandma because she did not bug me as much as my other fussy grandma did. She and my grandfather made me my doll house and she sewed neat Barbie clothes. She grew raspberries in the back yard and canned plums.

As a teen i stayed with her for weeks in the summer, on year with strep throat on her couch. We picked saskatoons, and strawberries. She took pictures of me dressed up in her old wigs and my grandpa's clothes pretending to be a detective. She used to wear wigs in her younger years. The basement always had the same smell. As kids my sisters and cousins and I would spend hours in slippers she made, drawing on the blackboard in the basement, climbing on the freezer to bug Tom the cat.

She has a hammer toe and is very embarrassed of her perceived bow legs and feet. She made chicken and broccoli casserole when we came to visit, and made very good muffins. blueberry or mincemeat.

When i got divorced i wrote to all my family telling them, and she wrote me a wonderful letter back that i still have, a letter that calmed my fears of being a grave disappointment.

When i moved to Saskatoon for school I would drive up to Prince Albert where she and my other grandparents lived for the weekend. She taught me to can beets and make jam. We would eat veggie burgers and i would help with whatever chores she had for me. up and down the stairs from the kitchen to the deep freeze. We would watch PBS nature documentaries.

We also had conflict. Mostly over the way she treated my mom. we have had our fights. some active and some simply periods of silence. but somehow, we remain close. I really will miss her despite this shitty interludes.

I think that part of the Cosmic Reason for me Moving here to Saskatchewan had to do with my grandparents. I am not here for work or school. Being near to them has done more to change who i am and the relationship I have with them, than any of the academic endeavours here.

In Saskatoon i had the chance to spend almost 3 weeks with myother grandmother, my Dad's mom, in the hospital when she had heart problems. telling stories, just getting to know each other.
funny, at both intervals or sick grandmothers there have been some conflicts with the roll i am playing as a grand-daughter.

I think that I want to have children not just because i want to have them for them and the people they will be, but because of the potential to also meet the people the will raise as my grandchildren. the extra gap in generations just seems to work . My grandparents have been more important to me recently than they were when i was a kid. then they were a source of gifts or interference. a source of praise or conflict. Now they are pieces of me. positive and negative.

From her i think i have a desire to grow food and flowers. I like to make pickles and jams. She credits herself for my non-fear of bugs and things-that-crawl from my time in her garden and the things that i would encounter in the raspberry patch and rows of beans. I do remember running screaming from the berries after tossing the harvest into the air after a daddy long legs found his way into the bucket. But i went back in.she explained he had every right to be there, and the good wirk he did.

I do not have her sense of house-keeping, or of the need to iron sheets. i do not iron sheets. and if i had a dish washer i would put the ALL the dishes in it. not wash some separately.

Right now i feel like i have rushed too much through life. like i am missing the point of things. I feel like I want to slow it all down.

I realise that my sister's child will be me. in the sense of being the eldest grandchild. they will remember my parents as younger grandparents than my children will ever be able to.