My Grandma

For those of you who don't know her, my grandma is 79 years old. She's a little Japanese woman who came to the States in the '50s. She and my Grandfather met while he was stationed in Japan during the War. After lots of drama, my Grandfather married my grandmother and moved her to the States, Indiana to be exact, while she was 7 months pregnant. She gave birth to my Uncle Bob on the boat. My grandfather was no where around. He was living his life in Indiana, waiting for his extremely pregnant wife to get there. My grandma had 6 kids in 4 1/2 years. Do the math. That's often only a month from giving birth to being pregnant again. The lineup goes something like this: Bob, my mom, Terry, Gloria, Charles, and Paula.

I don't have a very fond picture of my grandfather in my mind. I never met the man; he died when my mom was 7. I get the impression he was a good for nothing alcoholic who did nothing put keep my grandmother pregnant and desert her for weeks at a time to go on his drinking binges. This is something I'm almost positive my cousins have never heard about. Except for my Uncle Bob, the rest of my aunts and uncles were too young to remember much about Grandpa and I get the feeling they don't want to taint their children's images of our grandfather.

Now, years later, my Grandma is 79 (she'll be 80 in April) and she's been alone the majority of her life. In the last week, we've been faced with the inevitable decision of what to do now that Grandma requires more medical supervision than my parents (or any of my aunts and uncles for that matter) are able to give. My grandma was admitted to the hospital late Wednesday, early Thursday. She'll be there until Monday. When Monday rolls around, we'll have to have a nursing home ready for her or she stays there until we have one ready for her.

This is where my personal conflict comes in: how do I feel about this? I can't decide if I'm sad, scared for her, worried, happy, relieved, or what. Or maybe I'm just a little of all those things, which mesh together to create this state of stress I've been experiencing since Wednesday night.

I just keep asking myself..."What to do...what to do???"