December 28, 2011. Matt and I and some of the kids had just picked up Kate at the Whitmore's in Provo to have a sleepover with Ava during Christmas break. I insisted to Matt that we go and visit my Granny. Melinda was there. Granny was so frail. She's been in bed for a while. Too weak to get up. Too sick. I sat in the chair next to her. She already seemed smaller.
We were able to carry on a conversation good enough but there were times I could tell she was a bit confused or when she wasn't making sense. I commented on the hospital bed that had replaced hers. She told me there used to be two hospital beds in there but she wasn't sure where the other one had gone. Maybe "the girl upstairs" had moved it. Sharon, her caretaker. That's who she calls the girl upstairs. Granny kept trying to decide what book to read next. Even though all of us in the room knew she could never read it. I told her about some books on tape. What as I thinking telling her about the Hunger Games? Lest we were talking, and about something other than her condition. Matt had just listened to "Heaven Is For Real" he shared some insights such as, that in heaven no one is old.
Granny asked later a very open ended question, "What's going to happen?" I told her I didn't know. She wondered if she would be around next Christmas. I said, "I guess that is why we just live every day like it's the last." But what is she suppose to do with a statement like that?
We updated her on our children and the situation with the house and Matts job. We commented on the weather, not because there was nothing to talk about, but because it's truly remarkable that there was NO snow! Melinda had even been out raking leaves at the of December.
Granny had gotten a new night gown from everyone for Christmas. What else to give?
What else to give a person who only had a week and a half left to live on this earth?
Granny Woolf passed away Sunday January 8th 2012 at 10:15 am at home in Provo. I guess you could say from complications form Pneumonia but she had so many other things taking over her body like Parkinsons. Mostly, I think she just wanted to be with her sweetheart Bill and sons Bart and David.
Oh how I love my Granny Woolf. I will forever be grateful that before I left her bedroom that day I turned back, held her hand, and kissed her cheek.
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This has got to be the sweetest picture. Cade took it. This was granny's
view at the family Christmas party the day after Thanksgiving. For her
white elephant gift she appropriately opened a copy of People Magazine
with Susan Lucci on the cover titled, "All My Children."
The next time I held my granny's hand was on the night of January 8th, 2012.
This time it was cold and stiff. My aunts and uncles had all decided to leave
her in her bed while we raced back from Las Vegas to be together one last time.
She had passed away that morning while Sadie and Lindsey and I were recovering
from our Vegas adventure. My mom was alone in Hurricane at Lindsey's in-laws
house. We got quite a chuckle out of this. Here Mommy has practically lived at
Granny's bedside the past five years and then then when she passes my mom
was alone in Hurricane without a car. Instead she was eating Hungry Man dinners
and watching cable in a recliner. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration but it was
funny to picture. Her siblings were like, "Where is Leslie???????"
There we sat in a circle in granny's bedroom laughing, crying. I kept looking at
Granny expecting to see a smile. The morgue came about 9ish I suspect. There
we were arms locked and sobbing, as our dear mother/grandmother was taken
from her room for the last time. It was very emotional. Emotional also in the
happy sense.
It filled me with such warmth to picture the reunion she was having in heaven.
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The prayer before the casket was closed was given by John Woolf. The last good-bye was especially hard. But the most heart wrenching of all was to see Elaine in her wheelchair at 91 years old crying for her sister. I held her hand and asked how she was, "I'm sad," she told me. Yes.
