Flashback Friday #183

My Last Grandparent

Hello again. It's so nice to see you drop by. Well I can't actually see you, but you know what I mean.

I have written extensively about my grandparents in Westerville (30 posts to be exact, this one makes #31). Unfortunately, this will be my last post about my adventures in Westerville. With the passing of my paternal grandmother (grandpa had died eight years earlier), the only reason I ever went to Westerville was to work with Mom at the tile factory or to go shopping in the mall.

Grandma was funny in her own sort of way. If you've ever seen "Sanford & Son" and seen Fred digging through a drawer of glasses until he finds a pair that work, my grandma did the same thing. She never had seen an optometrist. When someone was getting new glasses, she asked for the old ones. Mom decided to take her to get her eyes examined and get her some glasses of her own.

It wasn't but a few months after that that she her first heart attack. The glasses didn't have anything to do with it (at least I hope not). It was a relatively mild one, and she was attended to quickly. After a few weeks, most folks had forgotten she had one, seeing she was back to normal.

She then had another one. This one was bigger than the last one. She wound up in the hospital. One of her doctors suggested that her poor oral health may have contributed to her illness. She, like Dad, didn't pay too much attention to oral hygiene. He suggested that if she had her teeth removed (like Dad had), she may  be able to fend of any more heart problems. She consented. When I visited her in the hospital, I almost didn't recognize her.

One thing she always did was keep tabs on how every one's family was doing. She asked Mom frequently about Aunt Liza & Uncle Brad. She had known that they were in a car accident, and wanted to know how they were doing. Mom always told her that they were doing fine, because she was afraid that the truth would be too much for her.

After she came home from the hospital, she was under constant watch. Aunt Beth had lived with her after her youngest son's death. She took off work for a few weeks, just to make sure Grandma was getting along OK. Grandma seemed to be gaining strength and it looked like she might be out of the woods. My folks had discussed with Aunt Beth as to whether they should tell her the truth about Aunt Liza & Uncle Brad. They came to the conclusion that she was strong enough to handle the truth. The next time she asked how they were doing, Mom told her that Uncle Brad had died and Aunt Liza had been hurt badly and was facing a long road to recovery. She seemed to take the news well enough.

The next day, we got the call that Grandma had another heart attack and was being taken to the hospital. Had the news done it? Nobody knows. She didn't recover from this one.

Grandma had requested that she be buried in a blue & white polka dot dress. She didn't own one, so the search was on to find one. The question arose, did she want a white dress with blue dots or a blue dress with white dots? A blue one was found and purchased.
At her funeral, I met several members of Dad family that I had never met before. I hadn't had much interaction with Dad's side of the family. A few days after the funeral, Aunt Beth had contacted an antique dealer and sold the contents of Grandma's at a ridiculously low price. Her house then went up for sale and sold quickly.