Life Keeps Going

I worked the weekend so I got today off. It has been a difficult couple of weeks. On Monday, Oct 24th Grandma B had to go to the hospital again. That's something that has happened more in the last year than in my whole life. She was diagnosed with cancer last December - mulitple myeloma - and had been fighting it like crazy since. That's my Grammy. Tough as nails. Anywho, she'd been doing pretty well and responding to the chemo. But then about a month or so ago her kidneys failed so she had to go on dialysis.

Right. Back to that Monday. She went to the hospital and we found out that she had two brain aneurisms - one on each side - and there wasn't a whole lot the doctors could do. So she told Grandpa she wanted to go home and Uncle Jeff gave her a blessing releasing her to go home to her Father in Heaven. She spend Monday night surrounded by her family - children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and of course Grandpa. Tuesday morning she was still lucid and talking and had more visitors and got phone calls from loved ones far away. By Tuesday evening when I made it to their house after work (about 5:30 or so) she was not awake or talking and hadn't been for several hours. I got to say my goodbyes and I love yous and she died early the next morning. The doctors had given her about 2 weeks, but she obviously had other plans.

I can't express right now how much grief I feel and how broken my heart is. I have loved her so very much. She has been a strength and an anchor to me. She taught me so many things about being a woman. I miss her so much.

We had her viewing at Wood Funeral Home on Ridge in Idaho Falls the evening of Sunday, Oct 30th and her funeral was held at the Grant LDS Church Building on Monday, Oct 31st. She was laid to rest in the Grant Cemetery on a cold, crisp, bright Halloween morning. Though others of the family took roses from the flower arrangement on top of her simple pinewood casket, I took a sprig of bluebells because they reminded me more of her than anything else.

Grandpa is doing quite well, all things considered. He told his children that Grandma had sacrificed her life so that he would get better. A couple of years ago his health was quite poor and we didn't think he'd be with us too much longer. He didn't get around very much at all and had to be on oxygen all the time. And then his sweetheart got sick and he stepped it up to take care of her. He's gotten stronger and is able to sometimes walk around without a walker or canes. He only has to be on oxygen at night. He's lost a lot of weight and is exercising more. He's so much stronger and healthier. He's even able to fit into his 'skinny pants' - a pair he said he hadn't been able to fit for a long time.

On the day of the viewing he was with one of my aunts and as they were doing whatever they were doing he suddenly said, 'She did it again!" My aunt asked what she (Grandma) did. Grandpa said, "She made me do something I didn't want to do." Meaning she had made him get better when he had said many times that he just wanted to die. So now he has said that he's not going to waste her sacrifice. He's decided to learn how to do indexing for the Church genealogy on his computer at home - he and Grandma had done extracting work with microfiche years ago. He talked to his old home teaching companion and asked him if he would like a partner again. He is determined to live his life as much as he can in the time he has left. He told me his father passed away at 85 and he wants to at least make it that long, too - he turned 83 last July.

I visited him last Saturday and he was in fairly good spirits. He talked about Grandma a bit and said he'd been reading her diaries. I asked him how they'd met and he wasn't specific but said he saw her riding a horse and it was love at first sight. There was a picture of the two of them in the slideshow from her viewing where they were very young, sitting on a crescent moon. I asked if that was a dance they'd gone to and he told me no, it was at the fair. It was taken the night that "one of us proposed to the other". Grandpa said he always thought she had proposed to him, but she always said it was the other way around.

He talked about a part in her diary when she wrote about the first time he kissed her. He said that he found out that she had felt the same way he did when he'd done it. He then said she wrote that she had wanted him to kiss her when he took her home, but he didn't. He told us if he'd  known that he would have done it! The whole time he was talking about it he was grinning and laughing - almost giggling, I swear! It's something I hope I'll never forget.

We talked about how they'd been together for 63 years - literally. He was a farmer and she was a housewife. The only time they'd spent apart was a week or so when she was staying with and helping her sister Beth who had broken her arm and maybe about the same amount of time when she came to Wyoming for my sister's birth. On the first occasion he said after the week he called her and asked when she was coming home. On the second occasion he said he went and got her because he couldn't stand to be away from her.

He also talked about how active she'd always been. He read an entry where she'd been helping the neighbor, Mrs Kilpack, with a quilt and lost track of time. When she did ask Mrs Kilpack what time it was and found out it was 6:30 she said, "Oh, I've got to go! I have a ball game I've got to play at!" And she did. Grandpa said she was 46 or 47 at the time. He talked about how on their mission in Canada she'd run races with the young elders and often beat them. They'd also have weekly volleyball games with the 'Lamanites' (as he called them) and it embarrassed him that they'd always pick her for their teams before they'd pick him! They were in their mid-fifties on this mission.

Another thing he mentioned from her diaries is that she always remembered the special occasions of every member of her famly - she'd note when it was someone's birthday or annversary and she never forgot. He said it was hard for her to go on their two missions and she didn't want to do it because she missed her children. They almost went on a third mission - the Bishop was ready to get it all set up and everything. Grandpa said they were sitting in the Bishop's office and he asked if they were going to go. Grandpa looked at Grandma and she shook her head at him and he said no. He told us she'd sacrificed enough for him and he wasn't going to make her do it again.

He also told us how she refused to move away from their little farm. He said once he'd found some nice ground down in Firth and asked her if she was ready to move. Her response was, "You can move if you want to but I'm staying here." So they stayed. Aunt Patricia said it was probably because when she was a girl growing up her family moved all the time. Sometimes to a house a block or two away from where they'd been, or maybe down the street. And she'd absolutely hated it. Patricia said that though Grandma had said she'd never marry a 'dumb farmer' (famous last words) that is exactly who she needed because a farmer would have to stay put - that is how they made their livlihood after all.

I can't write anymore. There is still more to say, but I just can't do it right now. Yesterday I was foolish enough to look at the pictures from the slideshow from her viewing and saw one where she was "striking a pose" with a fuzzy knitted hat my mom had made her on top of her head. It was a close-up of her face and she had a bit of a grin and more than a hint of silly mischief in her eyes. And I lost it. Right there at my desk at work. I started sobbing. Because it really hit me that she's gone and I'm not going to see her again in this life. I've done pretty well at locking up the grief for the most part, but that picture set it all free. I miss her now and I will miss her for a long time. It breaks my heart that, although I'm sure she'll be there, I won't see her at my wedding one day. I won't see her holding any babies I might have. I won't get to talk and laugh with her and share special moments with her. Not in this life. She is truly gone.

I know she wasn't perfect, but she was everything I needed her to be. I always felt her love and felt special with her - even when I was a smelly, awkward child and was pretty sure no one liked me. Even when everyone else left me alone and hurt my feelings and made me feel small, she never did. I always knew I was cherished by her. No matter what.

One of my earlies memories is of sitting next to her in church (a very coveted position, let me tell you) and wishing I could read so that I could sing the hymns with her. As, according to my mother, I learned to read at the age of 3, this had to have been a very early memory. And one of the last memories I have of her is sitting on the front steps of her house in the summer sunshine, watching Grandpa putter in the garden, and just talking. Hearing her say Grandpa was never happier than when he was 'playing in the dirt'. Watching her get choked up about how much she loved her family - every single one of her posterity - and how each and every one of them is a good person. She has always been an amazing person and I've been so blessed to have her in my life.

I love you, Grandma, and I miss you so very much.

In loving memory of Lorna Mae Wadsworth Butikofer

October 8, 1930 - October 26, 2011