Barbara on Apr 19th 2010
My Grandma fit the stereotype of many Italian women: stubborn, strong willed and considerate of everyone but herself. I have two strong memories of my Grandma. One was her long, dark, thick hair. (A trait she passed on to me.) She braided it every day and twisted it up into a tight bun on her head. The only time I’ve ever seen her wear her hair any other way was when I saw her in the hospital the week before she passed.
The second memory I have was the smell of her house; a distinct mixture of coffee and cigarettes. One summer, my sister and I stayed with my grandparents in Florida. Every morning at 5am, my Grandma would sit down at her kitchen table with her newspaper, a cup of coffee, and her leather cigarette case. She’d do this every day until everyone in the house got up, then she’d make us breakfast. There were several days that I woke up early and would sit with her at the table, coloring or doing whatever kids did, and I listen to her take drags on her cigarettes and slurp her coffee.
She came from a family and generation of smokers. At this point in my life, my Grandma already had been through breast cancer. The non smokers in the family urged her to quit. She tried, several times, but after at most a few weeks, she went back to her 5am routine. It’s hard to quit when your husband, brothers, sisters, and good portion of your family still smokes. (side note: How much second hand smoke have I inhaled??) Cigarettes consumed her life. It wasn’t until the doctors told her she had lung cancer and in order for her to survive, part of her lung would have to be removed and she’d have to go through radiation treatment again, that she quit for good.
One thing I absolutely despise about my family is the way they like to shelter and protect the young people from really knowing what is going on. They think we’re too fragile and delicate to handle the real world, so they play the “everything is just fine!” game. “Sweetheart there’s nothing wrong with your Grandma. Now go sit down and eat another piece of coffee cake.” The week before my Mom’s aunt died, some of my family members literally tried to block my cousin from seeing her because they thought she wouldn’t be able to handle it. Maybe this is just the Italian way, or maybe my family is just really effed.
When my Grandma went through her battle with breast cancer, I was too young to really understand what was going on, but I remember her going to radiation treatments every other day for lung cancer. I didn’t really understand the seriousness of it all because I was still a kid and no one really told me that it was serious. I knew what my Grandma had was bad and that these doctors were going to fix her. Sometimes, I’d drive with my Grandpa to the hospital and wait for her to come out from her treatments. She was tired and weak a lot of days, but she rarely ever showed it. She was still the same Grandma I always knew. She still fought with my Grandpa. She still complained about the price of milk at the grocery store. She still braided my hair so tight that would last for two days. She was a great actress.
She did everything she could to make sure the people in her life were taken care of. She cooked, fed you, cleaned up the dishes and then made sure your clothes were clean and pressed. She liked the fact that people depended on her, but then complained that no one ever helped her. But god forbid you actually tried to help, she’d say you were doing it wrong. Funny how that works, right? She wanted to feel needed and when she was too tired and weak to be able to do the things that she did on a daily basis for others, I think that scared her the most of all. I believe that’s why she fought so hard to beat the lung cancer. If she died, who was going to clean and iron Grandpa’s clothes? She was way too stubborn to let a little cancer stop her from living her life. She’d been through this before, and although this time it was worse, she wasn’t going down.
This wouldn’t be her last battle with cancer though. A few years later, her breast cancer came back. She ended up having a double mastectomy and beat it again. When I was 16, I lost contact with that side of my family, but throughout those 10 years where we didn’t see each other, I believe she remained cancer free up until just a few months before she passed. When my mother got a call a few months ago saying she was sick, the doctors weren’t exactly sure what was wrong. After several tests, they eventually found out cancer reappeared in her body. This time it started in her liver and quickly spread its way to her organs and bones.
The anxiety I felt the days before seeing my grandparents and uncles after 10 years was at times more than I thought I would be able to handle. The possible conversations between me and my family members ran through my head for two days. I was doing this for no one but by mother. When I saw my Grandma lying in that hospital bed, I realized that 10 years had gone by, but everything still felt the same. She complained about the hospital food, was stubborn about eating, and was still concerned with everyone other than herself.
The first thing she said to my mother was that she was going to try chemotherapy. All the other times my Grandma had cancer, she refused chemo treatments and always said she never wanted to go through with it. My mother, shocked, asked her why she would want to put herself through that. There was nothing more the doctors could do except try to make her comfortable. There were no other options that would work and going through such a rough treatment didn’t seem right. We were told this was the end. We accepted it, but she wanted to fight. She was too stubborn not too try and too worried about what everyone was going to do if she was gone. After ten years, she was the same person I remembered her as.
She didn’t get any chemo treatments. The hospice care nurses were excellent at making her comfortable and accommodating any needs her, or any other family members had. After a few more days of fighting, on April 6, 2010 she passed. In her will, she stated how she did not want a funeral service of any kind. My mother was surprised when she found this out, but I honestly wasn’t all that shocked.
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