Happy Birthday, Naomi & a report on last night

Happy Birthday to the former Naomi Gabriella Valladares, our now-5-year-old granddaughter.  I don’t know what her name is anymore.  The first and middle names are probably the same, but I have no clue what her last name is now.  (She was adopted out.)

Last night was the visitation at the funeral home.  Not very many people showed up, but we did get to see a few family members we haven’t seen in a long time.  Namely, my cousin Kelly and Aunt Catherine, who is Grandpa’s sister.  She is still the same as she used to be.  That’s a good thing.  As she was leaving, I hugged her and told her I loved her, and she said, "You’ve put on some weight, I see."  I said, "Yeah, a lot of it."  She said, "Well, you can tell me I’ve taken OFF some weight!" and then she backed up a step or two and made a "ta da" kind of gesture.  It tickled me, because you don’t expect an 84 year old to do things like that.

There was much laughter last night.  I expected to feel sad, but it wasn’t a sad night.  Everyone told Nanny stories, and most of them contained the word "shit", which was apparently Nanny’s favorite word! 

I told them about how Nanny tried, about a week or two before her death, to get me to go get her a carton of cigarettes.  She said, "Honey, do me a favor."  She was already having labored breathing, and she was too tired to sit up on her own, but it didn’t stop her from asking.  I asked what favor.  She said, "Take tventy dollars and go and get me a carton of cigarettes."  I laughed and told her $20 wouldn’t GET a carton anymore.  She said, "Do you have any money?"  I said no.  She said, "Vell, you just have to go anyvay!"  Okey dokey, then! lol  I told her the doctor said she couldn’t smoke anymore, which he never actually said.  Again, didn’t stop her!  She said, "Vell, you tell him, von’t you?"  I just said I sure would.

I think I stated her last words in this diary.  I was wrong.  Her last words to my sister were, "Thank you soooooo much, baby!"  Her last words came later in the day.  The nurse was giving her what wound up being her last "bath".  As the nurse and my sister rolled her over, they told her it wouldn’t take long and such, and Nanny uttered the totally in-character words to the nurse, "You denk you know eeeeeeverysing, don’t you?!"

Needless to say, those last words were so very fitting.  That was totally right for the way Nanny was, and everyone got a kick out of those being her very last words. 

After that sentence, she went to sleep.  She never woke up again.  Between 3:30 and 4am, Angela, the night nurse, called MH and advised her to come home….she didn’t think Nanny would be here but for a few more hours.  MH and the kids, Alex and Juli, sat by Nanny’s bedside, watching her breathing and talking and singing to her.  At 4:something, Mama texted me and asked me to call her.  I didn’t wake up for another hour, and I was frightened, because Mama NEVER texts me that late, except maybe on paper route nights, and it wasn’t one of those.  I wondered, briefly, if something had happened to Memaw.  I called Mama, and she told me what was up.  MH and I chatted on Facebook for a bit.  She told me what was going on.  Before I knew it, it was 7am.  I wrote an entry on here, and as soon as I saved the entry, I opened a picture of Nanny that is on my Desktop.  Just that instant, at 7:14am, MH called, crying, saying Nanny was gone.  She had stopped breathing.  While were talking, MH gasped, because Nanny had a reflexive breath, but it had already been more than one minute since she stopped breathing, and she didn’t take another one.

Thus ended her 89 year stay on this Earth.  Now, she is with my Daddy, who was her only child, Grandpa, and nineteen of her twenty siblings.  She missed them all soooo much, so I’m glad she is with them, now. 

I’m just not sure how ready I am to see her buried.