For any of you that know me personally, or have visited my blog at least once ever, you know that my family is extremely important to me. Especially my great-grandma. I spend a good majority of my free time out at her house. Whether I'm out there just to visit or to help clean, I enjoy every minute of it. And it might not seem like that because well, who really likes to clean? But it's not what I'm doing that makes me love it, it's the fact that I'm there.
When I was a little girl, I held on to the belief that my great-grandparents were going to be around forever. And I didn't have anything to make that be untrue. In my eyes, my great-grandparents were healthy as can be. I was too young to see the underlying health problems that I'm now seeing. So, as you can imagine, the death of my great-grandpa came as the biggest shock. I didn't think I'd lose them, so it hit me twice as hard when I did.
Ever since then, I've held on to every memory of him as though it's a piece of gold. Memories are priceless. In my great-grandma's house, I can still see him out of the corner of my eye. Him coming around corners to tickle me, asking me if I was "his girl" - which I always was. I had so many years in that house with him that it was hard to find something that didn't remind me of him. Or of my great-grandma.
Well, a couple months ago my mother informed me that my great-grandma was looking in to moving into one of the Senior Apartments in town. It'd be a one-bedroom, tiny thing about a mile from my house. And while I realized that this was probably the best decision for her - her house was falling apart: there was mold in the basement and the foundation was crumbling - I couldn't help but feel that my heart was breaking. You see, my great-grandparents had lived in that house for longer than I've been alive, and I grew up there. Ruth tells me not to get so attached to places, but I can't always help it. I felt this same heartbreak moving out of my home last January, and when I moved out of my dorm room a couple weeks ago. I get attached to places. The memories overwhelm me and I can't help feeling sad when I leave.
My great-grandma moved a couple weeks ago, and last weekend I got to see the house I grew up in nearly empty. Gone was the kitchen table. Gone was the couch that my little cousins and I used to use as a backseat in our imaginary car. Gone was the swing that was my comfort after my great-grandpa died. And you know what? It hurt. A lot more than I expected it to.
But there's always comfort in pain if you know where to look. That house was destroying my great-grandma's health. The mold was getting to her and making it hard to breathe. The stress of living next to my great-grandpa's bitch daughter was getting to her. And now that she's out of that, it's like having my old grandma back. She's happier. Healthier. And if losing that house means that I get to have my grandma a couple years longer, it seems like a good trade.
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