Wearin' My Heart on My Sleeve

      "Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality."

                                              ~Emily Dickenson

About a year ago, when Fly Boy was home from Iraq for his mid-tour “vacation” I headed to North Carolina to visit him, with a stop over in OKC to visit with my beautiful and incredible paternal Grandmother. I left OKC thinking that would be the last time I would see her alive, since she was nearing 89 years on this earth.

When I was heading back to California, we looked into each other’s eyes and I could see that she too felt it was our last goodbye. She had survived two strokes and was using a walker, but she was still pretty sharp and happily living in an assisted living community with her own belongings around her.

Since that visit, she’s deteriorated greatly. A broken leg, nearly at the hip- requiring surgery and she hasn’t walked since. Kidney failure; and dialysis 3 times per week. Weight loss to skin and bones, and horrific bed sores. We call her the Energizer Grandma-she keeps going, and going and going, despite her physical condition and the lack of quality care she received in the “skilled care facility“ that her situation required. She’s now in a new nursing facility that I hope will take better care of her than the last one. That’s what I am hoping to see, when I arrive there next week.

In a perfect world, one of her family members would be able to care for her at home.

But, her remaining children are in their mid to late 60s with their own significant health problems. A few years back she refused to relocate to California with Papa and I, which was probably best, considering his poor health and subsequent death. I would have been taking care of the both of them.

My Uncle Lee and I are heading there next week to see her and my Aunt Mary, who‘s recently broken her shoulder. While we are there, we plan to head toEastern Oklahoma and visit the graves of long gone family-a tradition with my dad. This is my first trip to the cemeteries without him, which will be somewhat strange, and also my first trip to the cemeteries with my Uncle Lee, who‘s never been quite the cemetery fan, unlike Papa.

While we are there, we will bury a small urn of Papa’s ashes in the Camp Creek Cemetery, next to his two infant son’s sites. I think he’d be happy to know that some of his ashes are in the red dirt of his beloved Eastern Oklahoma.

As I cannot take the urn on the plane, since it can’t be unsealed for inspection and its shape could easily be mistaken for a hand grenade, (yikes!) I have appropriately packaged the urn to be sent via the USPS and will mail it tomorrow.

The urn is about 3 inches tall and wrapped securely with bubble wrap and placed inside a ziplock sandwich bag. Just in case, I put my Aunt Mary‘s address inside the ziplock bag as I‘d hate to know Papa‘s ashes were lost in transit, if the box was damaged. I then cushioned it all with tissue and tightly packed it inside a small, heavy cube shaped box. Lastly as required, the label must identify the contents as “Human Ashes” and, so it is ready.

Aunt Mary will check with a mortuary in the area to see what regulations, if any are required to bury the ashes in that old cemetery and make the arrangements. While there, I will purchase a small marker for the site and ask that the mortuary put it in place when it is finished.

Papa would have done the same for any of us.