This week is finally over!! It has quite possibly been the most exhausting (in every possible way: physically, emotionally, etc.) week EVER; the type of week that makes you wonder “what’s the point”.
To start, on Monday morning, at 7:15 am, as I was walking from the parking lot to the bell room, I felt my phone vibrate in my pocket — a new text. I figured that it was probably Bryan or another Bellissimo member asking me to tell Mr. Walters that they’re stuck in traffic; instead, it was my dad. The text…”Grandma Gail died last night”. Wow…definitely not the best way to start off the week… So, naturally, I immediately start crying my eyes out and have to walk into bells to tell Walters and ask for a few minutes to compose myself. However, I only felt worse as my entrance was met with confused and judging stares and “what the heck” looks on everyones’ faces. (To be fair though, once I left and Walters told everyone what had happened, they were completely supportive the rest of the week).
The next day, all I felt like doing was lying in bed and eating ice cream all day. Unfortunately, that was not a luxury I could afford: I had already made a commitment to work at a polling place in Yucaipa, Dunlap Elementary School, for the elections. Thus, instead of resting all day, I instead had to wake up at 4:45 am, and be at the polling place by 6 am where I worked until 9 pm…a 15 hour, non-stop, work day… Naturally, by the end of the day, I felt like death and nearly fell asleep during the drive home.
So by Tuesday evening, I was emotionally and physically exhausted and still had the entire rest of the week to go through. And, of course, this HAD to be a pretty stressful week homework and yearbook-wise (not including the extra power-point presentation about the senior class trip I was sucked into making because “no one else had enough time”…)
So yeah, anyway, if you were wondering, my Grandma Gail (my mom’s mom from Ohio) died from matastasized liver cancer. She had breast cancer a couple years ago and the doctors were sure that they had gotten rid of all of it…well that turned out to be false and a few months ago they found a spot on her liver; it was terminal. She did undergo chemo for awhile, in hopes of pro-longing her life a couple more months, but it was just too hard on her body and made her constantly sick — which is not the way you want to spend your last few remaining months. So she stopped. My mom flew out there about two weeks ago and stayed with her until the day she died. And we’re now planning her memorial…which will be on the first Saturday of Thanksgiving break. By my mom’s request, Laura and I (with my dad on the piano) are practicing two bell duets for the memorial…
It’s a horrible feeling knowing my Grandma won’t see me graduate high school…or see Laura get married in 2012…or even see my cousins (who are about 5 and 7) grow up… However, I am glad that she is no longer in pain.
I love you Grandma Gail <3 You will be dearly missed.
