Tuesdays with Morrie Reflection 5/1

This past summer my family has experienced the hardest hits that Death could give. You see he took away the two people who were the cores of what made my family a family. But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I’ll tell you about my Mimi, because her death was the hardest for me to handle.

Her name was Dorothy Moore, but to us great-grandkids she was Mimi. Mimi was one of those people who would scold you and then tell you a joke right after. I remember sitting around the table after dinner one night, just talking about every day stuff, with the radio playing in the background. Then Mimi turns and yells “Bud turn the radio up; I love this song!” Now I have no idea how she heard the radio, she had to use hearing aids to hear us yell, I couldn’t even hear the damn radio. But the second Bud, her second husband, turned the radio up she started to sing “Like a Virgin” by Madonna. The whole table burst out laughing and then one by one started to join in singing the song.

                That was one out of the million memories that ran through my mind as I sat in the hospital waiting room waiting for the moment that the woman I had looked up to for so long took her last breath. I couldn’t believe just a few hours ago I was bowling and laughing with my friends celebrating a birthday while my great-grandmother was dying. I hated myself at that moment, I hated God for doing this to my family, I hated the fact that the situation was happening so fast, and I hated how helpless I felt. There was nothing I could do to stop my Mimi’s and my families’ suffering at that moment.

                It wasn’t till a few hours later that my aunt told me there wouldn’t be a funeral. No chance for closer or a last goodbye. I would have to go into the room full of family members and say my goodbyes to a suffering woman. The tears wouldn’t stop running as I walked out of the room; I didn’t stop till I felt the cold crisp air outside in front of my mothers’ car; I wanted to get away and fast.

                The car ride home was a blur. When I got home I went downstairs to my bed filled with my partied out friends and laid down a cried until I fell asleep.