Grandparents

[MrWookie]

One of my last memories of my dad's dad was from the summer my family went out there to burn their house down.

My dad grew up on a farm in south-central Minnesota, just off I-90. When my grandparents started having kids, they built a new, larger house on the south side of the road that ran through the middle of their property so that they could house all of them. Their old house was used at first for storage, but after the kids had all grown up, moved out, and started having their own kids, the whole area around that house had pretty much fallen into disarray.

My younger brother and I were pretty familiar with working hard on the farm durning the summers there. We'd drive out to the farm pretty much every summer from Seattle, and while you were there, you helped w/ the chores. We baled hay, helped in the garden, and I'm probably one of the few people in my generation that's actually driven a tractor. We still found some time to play in the barn, fish off the bridge for bullhead with Grandpa, and play with the farm dog Fritz. This summer, though, since the whole house had to be cleaned out, torn down, and burned, it was going to be quite a bit of work.

About a year or so before this, Grandpa had a stroke. He survived, but he wasn't quite as with it afterwards. He had to give up what he still did on the farm. He'd already stopped taking care of the cattle. He still owned the land, but it was time for him to hire out help to care for it.

Once we got to work, you wouldn't believe the things we found in this house. We found pesticides that had long been outlawed. We had to use the Bobcat to haul out an old engine that had been tossed in there. We carried out dozens and dozens of coffee cans filled with rusty nails. People who lived through the Depression, especially on a farm, save EVERYTHING.

The little project of emptying out this house rapidly grew, though. It's a running joke in my family that we should never give my dad a chainsaw. If you do, "a little trimming" turns into deforestation. So too was it with the house. Cleaning up the house was an excuse to clean up about an acre of property around it that had pretty much been wild for 20 years or more. You remember the old Jeff Foxworthy joke about "If you mow your lawn and find a car, you might be a redneck?" Yeah, that was us. Except it wasn't cars. It was old, rusted farm equipment. We found all these old plows, hay rakes, and contraptions I had no idea what they did hidden under 3' grass. Oh, and the tires. Yeesh. There were at least 4 discarded tires hidden under 2' of grass around every tree. They may or may not have been disposed of by burning under cover of darkness.

We found so much junk metal that we called in the scrap man. This guy would haul away your junk metal, and he actually paid YOU by the ton for the privilege. We piled up all the farm equipment, the engines, the cans of rusty nails, the heads of the old tools, and all the rusted, broken chunks about which we could only speculate what they used to do, and the scrap man would come every couple days with his blow torch, cut the big things up and toss it into his truck. We ended up making about $500 off the guy for this, which I was shocked about. It was for somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-5 tons of metal. Grandma thought she was getting ripped off. We finally convinced her that if we were in civilization, we'd be paying the scrap man much, much more than $500 to have all this taken away.

Grandpa, through all of this, didn't really understand what was going on. His stroke had kind of reverted him back into Great Depression mode. Whenever he'd pass by the junk pile, he'd grab a coffee can or two of unusable rusted nails and take them back into the old house to be saved for later, Fritz following loyally behind. We wound up keeping him inside most of the time.

When we finally got it cleared out, we called up a guy with a Cat to come and tear the house down. It was pretty cool to see. He'd take the claw of the Cat, jam it into the side of the house, and then tear it down into the foundation. I don't think it even took him an hour. Afterwards, we piled up the results of "a little trimming" on top of it: about half a dozen medium sized trees, and a huge mound of branches that would have filled up the whole first story of the house and then some. And finally it was time for the gasoline (maybe an old tire or two, but you didn't hear it from me) and a match. The whole family just stood and watch with the satisfaction of two weeks' hard work, a little sadness for seeing it go, and a fair bit of awe at one [censored] huge bonfire. Well, not my dad, actually. He was still at it with the chainsaw. My brother and I went around with the Bobcat to load up all the branches he cut off and tried to toss them onto the fire from a distance of about 15 yards, which is about as we could come to this inferno.

It was either the very next October, or the one after that, that my Grandpa had another stroke and died.

[MrWookie]

My Grandma died today at about 11:30 PDT. Mom's mom. She was 88 years old.

She moved in with us not too long after my Grandpa died (other Grandpa from my story above). We had given her our dog to keep her company right after Grandpa died, but she was getting older and weaker and the dog was still not the best company. We moved many of her things from her house in with her, but we didn't actually sell her house until a few years later. Emptying out that house wasn't quite as arduous as emptying out my other grandparent's house, and there wasn't a spectacular fire at the end. We did make about $500 again, but this time from a traditional garage sale instead of tons of scrap metal.

Not long after she moved in with us, she started needing a walker. She still got around alright, though. One of her favorite things to do was to go grocery shopping with my mom. She did pretty well holding onto the cart and pushing it around, and it got her out and about. She slept upstairs, too. She would hold onto the rail with both hands and take one step at a time, and usually one of us would go with her just in case, but like I said, she made it every day. Mentally, she was still pretty with it, too. Her wit might not have been as quick as it used to be, and sometimes her short term memory wasn't great, but she still liked telling stories of her younger days (or mine!).

She soon started deteriorating, and she was diagnosed with age-onset Parkinson's. The first walker we had became too difficult for her to use, so we got her a new one. We also started getting in-home care on the days my mom worked. The woman we got kept her company, helped her to the bathroom and to bathe, made sure she got up and walked around periodically, etc. This was a real load off my mom, because it was quickly seeming that Grandma would not be able to take care of herself anymore.

Still, though, she did alright. You had to help her up, and you had to walk with her to the bathroom, but she could generally take care of herself once she was there. It started being a battle to get her to walk somewhat upright, though, and this is probably the one thing that was hardest on my family. What is the best way to fight a battle that you know you're going to lose? If my Grandma doesn't keep using those muscles, they'll deteriorate faster and for good, but she didn't like our efforts one bit. She would even be wailing and moaning about it like it was bloody murder these last few years, but she'd be perfectly fine as soon as she sat down. How much of that was pain, and how much was just complaining? I don't think we ever figured it out.

We did have a couple scares around this point. Grandma fell a few times, but usually softly because we were there to catch her. Once, though, she fell and broke her right arm on the concrete. Fortunately, it was just her arm and not her hip, but we still thought this was pretty bad. My dad jury-rigged a 6" piece of PVC pipe to the walker and padded it so she could stick her cast hand in there and use the other to hold the walker.

Scarier though was when she was at my brother's college band concert. She passed out in the middle of the thing due to low blood pressure. Her face was blue, and my mom thought she was gone. When they got her on her back and the paramedic arrived, she got some blood back in her head and came to. The paramedic asked her a few questions to make sure she was alright.

"Did you come to see your grandson in the band?"
"Oh yes!"
"What instrument does he play?"
(proudly) "The baritone."
"The baritone sax?"
(a little disgusted with him) "No no, the baritone horn."

She was right, and she always was very proud of us. She went home that night, and that was that.

Still, though, Grandma kept getting worse and worse. We tried different combinations of medications to try and fight the Parkinson's and keep her walking, but it was really tough. Just getting her to the bathroom became quite a production, and she wasn't really eating all that great on her own, either. Mostly, mom would have to cut and spear her food for her, but Grandma could take it from there. As you can expect, this was really starting to wear on my family, especially my mom. I was extremely impressed with how well she did. Not even the stress of all the day to day care, but having to deal with the fact that this was her mother, she's dying, and there's not much you could do. I think at least once a year I'd hear mom talk about putting her in a nursing home, and it'd always go the same way. "If I knew she had a year or more left, of course I'd put her in the nursing home. But if she only has a couple months, I want her here where she's happier and more comfortable." No one could know how long she had, though, so she stayed with us.

On Friday, my mom called and said that Grandma had all of a sudden entered what the in-home care people (it was more people at this point) called end of life breathing. I was away for the weekend, though, so I didn't get the call until Sunday evening. I got to tell Grandma that I loved her, and had to hope that she could still hear me. She had been put on a fairly large dose of morphine, though, both for the pain, and because it would apparently help her breathe a little. Her lungs had pretty much filled w/ fluid by yesterday, though, but her heart kept going until this morning.

Those of you that are the praying types, I appreciate your prayers, especially for my mom. This is obviously hardest on her. This ultimately came as a surprise to no one, and to a degree, this is a relief to my whole family. Saying good bye is always hard, though. Thanks.

[entertainme]

[ QUOTE ]

Those of you that are the praying types, I appreciate your prayers, especially for my mom. This is obviously hardest on her. This ultimately came as a surprise to no one, and to a degree, this is a relief to my whole family. Saying good bye is always hard, though. Thanks.

[/ QUOTE ]

You did such a nice job of making your grandparents real to us in these posts. Having grown up in MN, and living on a farm in WI now, it was like being there for the house coming down. I'm sure they were very proud of you.

My parents are in pretty good shape. My FIL is ill and my husband's been making long road trips to try and work with his doctors and get his care organized.

I make it a point to tell my kids that when family needs you, then you be there for whatever it is. It sounds like your Mom is a shining example. I know I worry about facing these things in the future and I hope that we do as well for our parents as she did by her Mom.

My sincere condolences on your loss. You and your family will certainly be in my prayers.

The Poker Mom

[Five-Star]

My condolences. My grandfather just turned 88 on Thursday. I can't imagine him passing away. I'm afraid it will happen when I'm over in the sandbox. My thoughts are with you Wook.

[katyseagull]

Aw Wookie, I'm so sorry your grandma passed away. That was a very sweet post. I will keep you and your mom in my prayers tonight.

[Runkmud]

Wookie, my condolences, thanks for the touching story. I'm amazed that I missed this thread, and although through unfortunate circumstance, I'm glad it was bumped. Tommorow when I sober up, I'll try, despite my pitiful writing abilities, to do some justice to the great characters my grandparents were.