I wrote this post a year ago, a few days after my grandmother passed away. At the time we were also preparing for a hurricane to make its landfall in the Houston area. We were told to expect only rain, and we got rain! Hurricane Harvey turned out to be the costliest one on record only comparable to hurricane Katrina in 2005. Anyway, I forgot to post this, but since it will be a year since my sweet grandmother's passing in a few days, I thought it would be appropriate to finally post it.
This picture of my grandparents was taken by my father-in-law 15 years ago in Smolyan, Bulgaria. My grandmother was 69 and my grandfather was 72. A year after I was married, my in-laws visited Bulgaria to meet my extended family since only my parents and sister were able to come to my wedding in Houston, TX.
Here my grandmother looked healthy and happy, as I will always remember her. About three years ago, she started having trouble with her balance and memory. When I visited her two years later, these symptoms were much worse, and she was not able to do many things for herself. She and my grandpa were now living in a small rented apartment in the city, where they could be closer to my mom and uncle and be watched over. Fortunately, my grandmother was still able to sit up on her own and speak. She also was able to recognize me, and in her fragile condition she was apologizing that she had nothing to give me this time. Tears welled up in my eyes. This is how she showed her love. She was always giving and never expecting anything back in return.
I knew this wonderful woman very well. I spent two or three years of my early life in her house, and after I started school in the city, I came back every summer and stayed for two or three months with her, my grandpa, and my great-grandmother. They all lived in a four bedroom farmhouse. They had plenty of land which had to be cultivated and thus kept my grandparents very busy, especially my grandmother. Every morning my grandma was up by 4 am to milk the cow, feed and clean the other animals, light the fires in the house, make breakfast for all and then head to work.
She worked at the local medical clinic as a janitor. However, she did more than just clean the floors. She performed simple procedures and while I was a kid, I thought she was a PA. People used to come to the house and ask her for a medical advice! When I was visiting with them, I would go to the clinic every afternoon since there were no scheduled patients for the afternoon. One of my favorite memories with her is when she asked to pick cherries from the tall cherry tree in the clinic’s yard. One summer afternoon, my grandma and the nurse, who was a good friend of my grandma's, decided that the cherries were ripe enough and someone needed to pick them. They helped me climb up on top of the ambulance which was parked under the cherry three and handed me a bucket. I was surrounded by beautiful dark red sweet cherries. I did not even had to stand up. I sat on the top of the ambulance for a few hours and ate almost as many cherries as I put in the bucket.
My grandmother was a sweet woman. Everyone loved her. I never heard her raise her voice at anybody, except may be when she saw the cat licking the fresh milk she had just milked. She always doted on me. In spite of her being so busy with farm work, she was willing to sew clothes for me. My grandpa did not like her taking valuable time in the summer to be inside the house, since there was so much work to be done on the farm. So we had to do the measuring and sewing in secret. She made me many pretty skirts. We often fought over their length. She wanted the skirts to at least reach my knee, and I wanted them to stop at mid-thigh. She was the seamstress though, so she won that fight every time.
The kids and went to Bulgaria this summer and I visited with my grandmother. She was almost a different person. She was skinny, frail and stiff. The pain I could see on her face when she was being moved from one side to the other in her bed or elevated up to be fed, was almost palpable. I want to say that she recognized me, even though she was no longer speaking or visibly responding when she was spoken to. Her care-takers told me that sometimes she would have a moment of clarity in which she would say a few small words, and then her mind would retreat again. This was particularly hard on my grandpa. He would talk to her all the time though, tell her jokes, tease her, in spite of him receiving no response.
When the kids and I had first arrived in Bulgaria and made it only to my sister's house which is a couple of hours from my parents house, my uncle had called me in panic, letting me know that my grandma was having a hard time breathing, and she was probably going to die. Luckily she recovered, and when I arrived in my home town, I was able to see her a few times. I took the kids to see her as well once, even though I knew it would be a hard scene for them. When we left town she was stable, and I truly was hoping that she would have one more year, and I would be able to see her again. Last Wednesday, August 23, 2017 I received a call from my sister, and she told me that after a week of painful struggle, my grandma had passed away. I could not attend my grandmother' funeral. I simply wasn’t going to get there in time. This was a sad day in so many different ways...
Before my grandmother's brain and muscles started to deteriorate, she had a hard time seeing. She was told that she had cataracts and macular degeneration. I had arranged for her to have her cataracts operated on, but because of her macular degeneration, she was refused the surgery. I talked to two ophthalmologists here in the US, and they both agreed that removing the cataracts would have been absolutely worth it. It would have given her a better sight for a few years, before she completely lost her sight. I was furious that they had refused her the surgery, but there is so much one can do when living on a different continent.
My grandmother's diagnosis was never absolutely clear. Her failing brain and muscles were attributed to either Parkinson's or Alzheimers, or both. I know, both are terminal illnesses and there is no cure for either one, but how can a doctor prescribe correct symptom alleviating medication when unsure of the diagnosis?! Unfortunately the state of the public Bulgarian medical system is in a dire state. I pray for my family members not to get sick, because they will not be cared for well.
I and many others who knew my sweet grandma, will remember her as the kindest and most loving person. She carried a lot on her small frame her whole life, and unfortunately her death was a hard one too. What gives me comfort though is that all of us, who loved her, tried our best to care for her in the best way we knew how. The biggest burden fell on my mom and my uncle. It must have been so hard for them to see her in such a fragile state. It was emotionally crushing for me. I never left her little apartment without crying.
I am so grateful for the tender mercies of the Lord. There was a big chance that my grandmother passed away before I arrived in Bulgaria, but then she pulled through. I believe that the Lord kept my grandma alive a little longer, just so that I could see her again and say goodbye to her. The last time I saw her, I gave her a kiss and a hug, and I told her that I loved her...I wish I could have one more day with her and just hear her call me the sweet names that she had for me.
