My grandmother passed away at about 5 AM on Sunday, March 15th. As usual, my uncle and I have the same thought- we remembered back to our school days and “Beware the Ides of March.” He wrote this update to some of our family members and I thought it was so eloquent, I wanted to share:

In seventh grade, we read Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar which has the oft quoted line, “Beware the Ides of March.” Well, I didn’t get that; what the hell are “Ides” and what’s so important about that oft quoted line? Not wanting to look ignorant in school, I went, instead, to an ever reliable source, my mother. Sure enough, she explained about the Ides of March in sufficient detail to satisfy my curiosity.

This is a funny story to write, you may be thinking, but there is a point.

That little episode of my history came to mind in an ironic way when it occurred to me yesterday that my mother, died on the Ides of March, 2009. She was 91. They tell me she kind of faded away over the last 3 weeks, unable to fight off a combination of the MRSA virus, a bladder infection and pneumonia. I understand she didn’t seem to be in pain.

I watched her fading away, dying inch by inch. I still don’t really know which is worse, losing someone suddenly or watching them fade away like this. When I lost my other grandmother, the pain came after her death, and there was a lot of hurt, anger, and I had a hard time understanding why.

With this grandmother, it was completely different. The hurt and anger all came before her death. Why couldn’t we do the humane thing and let her die in a humane manner rather than watch her fade away? Why couldn’t we DO something rather than sit back and let her die? How is it fair that we can put dogs out of their pain and misery, but not people? And everyone in my family was tired, irritated, and sniping at each other when it was really the situation we were all mad at, not each other.

When she died, instead of being sad and hurt and confused, I was happy for her. Happy she’s in a better place. Happy she’s no longer in pain (if she was in any), and happy that she’s back to her old self, but in Heaven. And I was relieved. And maybe a little guilty for feeling so relieved since my life had been hanging on by an interminable thread. Now things can go back to normal, and I’m glad of that, but a bit guilty that I’m feeling so glad about that.

We travel to Indiana at the end of this week to say our goodbyes. And then things can get back to normal. A new normal, one without my grandma in it. But normal as can be.