I got a voicemail from my father this evening asking me to call him as soon as I got the message, no matter what time it was. I knew as soon as I heard it that she was either very sick or dead. This was my dad's mom.
She was 88 years old, had a stroke many years ago (6? 7?). We've known this was coming, but it still sucks so much. The last time I saw her, I was still in grad school. It was probably about 4 years ago. I feel so guilty that I didn't call her more often and that I couldn't afford to fly to Ohio to see her since then. It's still hard to completely wrap my mind around this.
My dad called to let me know we don't know much about arrangements yet. My grandmother wanted to be cremated in Ohio, so my aunt is handling those arrangements. There will be a service at some point in the NJ town that most of her family is from (her maiden name goes back in that town for over a century, probably longer). We don't know if it's in 2 weeks or not until spring, but it'll be somewhere in that time frame.
The one bright side of this is that, in trying to figure out how far back her maiden name goes, I discovered a bunch of my ancestry, including a German ancestor who brought the name to the USA (all people with that last name are apparently related, it's unique to this family). And an ancestor who was a soldier in the Revolutionary War, in the Sussex Militia, & for the Continental Army.
So if I wanted to, I could become a member of the DAR. Which gave me flashbacks to Gilmore Girls, which made me happy. Something in common with Lorelei and Rory!
Post by cuddlyevil on Nov 19, 2012 10:13:55 GMT -5
{{{{HUG}}}
I'm sorry Jess. Will you be able to get out to NJ for the service?
I've been digging into my family history and found out we have German ancestors too, totally did not know that (I've been able to go back to Bavaria in the 1500's).
I think I'll be able to make it to NJ for the service. I don't have a lot of $$, since most of my extra goes to funding Scotty's treatment, but I'll find a way to get there, and I'm sure DH will be taking good care of Scotty while I'm gone, even though it would be nice to have his support at the service.
I think the biggest thing for me is being there for my father. My cousins are reaching out on FB and it means a lot to me that they are. They're all reaching out to my dad as well.