To love & be loved
A journal entry from my grandmother's final day
The following is an unedited journal entry from Saturday, April 5, 2025, written just an hour or two after my grandmother passed. Please note it includes some details about her dying process. But it is foremost a reflection on the mutual care and sacrifice that was shared between us when she was living. I offer it here to honor her and the gift she gave me in bearing witness to her death, and to inspire us to show our loved ones how much we care for them while they are still with us.
What a week it’s been. Grandma’s final, finally
she is done suffering finally
she is out of her humanly misery.
I hope so deeply she is at peace, eternally.
It has been so incredible to witness her transition process with such proximity + intimacy.
Tuesday I got the call around noon, was driving to her by 3, sleeping alongside her by 10. She was far away, but still close. Still knew I was there, still opened her eyes a tiny bit or raised her eyebrows when I spoke to her. Wednesday, less so. By the end of day Wednesday, there was no more effort to rip off her oxygen or shirt, no more disgruntled rubbing her belly or general agitation. By Thursday she seemed at peace. Drugged, but peaceful. They said some people flail & suffer even with morphine. Thankfully she didn’t. She had suffered enough. She didn’t have energy left for that at the end.
She started getting a fever Thursday, bringing me back to pops’ ICU room, putting cold compresses on him, wiping his sweaty face. Friday, doing the same for grandma. That morning, I sat & watched her a lot – she was much farther away. Her right foot looked completely dead. In late morning, watching her, I saw the right side of her face cave in. In real time! And it never went back – stayed concave. By evening, the left side had caved in too. Her chest had started turning redish-purple. After dinner, returning to her room, she smelled of death. I was having a hard time there – wanted to leave, felt suffocated by the smell, the heat, the loud voices. But at home, I smoked, reflected, texted with [my sister] Jenna. We decided to return. We sat by her – barely a shell of herself. The gurgly breath was strong. A symptom meant to last a few hours before death which ultimately lasted 12 hours. Slowly, slowly, she moved through every symptom. Slowly, slowly, she struggled to leave, her heart racing to catch oxygen, spirits pulling her in one direction while our grief, our desire to care for her, pulled her back here. She battled. It didn’t look or feel easy. Her exhaustion emanated off her dwindling body, seeped into mine. Just sitting there, witnessing – exhausting. But also such a rare gift, an honor, to trust & be trusted, to love & be loved.
“You loved her in a way she had probably never known before,” Nick told me in a voice note I listened to at 1:30 am on my way home, when Jenna & I left her to be in her privacy & peace. And it felt true. I loved her honestly, openly, tenderly, in a hands-on, tactile, care-full way. I made sure she was massaged in fancy CBD oil, hair brushed, behind her ears cleaned. Asked her the hard questions to help facilitate her move to hospice in October, gave her the direct guidance to stop adding her own suffering on top of the rest by staying mired in guilt. She was depressed, in emotional pain, for so long. But she sacrificed for her people, including me. I feel so indebted & grateful to her for the care in my first 2 weeks of life [when my mother was sick in the hospital]. Who, how, would I be without that?
She could have broken. Then, and countless other times. Could have let mad woman rage take over – almost did in the end. But she held it together. She kept her mind & heart intact – literally & figuratively – until the last moments. There was bitterness for sure, but it was rooted in love & respect for everyone. And that is more than most people could say. Le sarò grato per sempre.
If you want to read more about who and where my grandmother came from, in February 2024 I wrote about her lineage and their relationship to the olive groves of Puglia.
Seeding futures beyond loss
“Ghosts point to our forgetting…these ghosts are the dead trunks of centuries-old olive trees, which remind us that we live in an impossible present - a time of rupture, a world haunted with the threat of extinction.” – János Chialá