I made Angel Chicken (my standard crockpot meal) and strawberry yogurt muffins and brought those to the hospital along with plastic odds and ends to eat with/on and a kool-aid type stuff.

My main concern was that there wouldn’t be enough food. I needn’t have worried. Seems like the others aren’t much more interested in eating than I am. It was good to be together and at least act like a family. It wasn’t the same, of course, as sitting around one of the tables. And the uncles left at least three times in the hour I was there to go “warm their noses.” I sat by Grandma and tried to talk to her, and couldn’t say anything normal (in a normal voice).

She has an Oxygen mask now (with a bright blue tube that starts just below the chin), instead of just the nasal cannula, and she still coughs, but can’t spit the junk out. She responds (sometimes) it seems to some things said, or people that speak, but she hasn’t opened her eyes for a long time.

Sarah said Grandma smiled at her, and laughed at a story Uncle Bill told about his son, Adam.

This grief thing is surreal.

When I left Gma’s bedside the first time, I went back to Jay, who pulled me into his lap. I wilted, and whispered, “Don’t be too nice to me, I won’t be able to hold it together.”

“‘Don’t be too nice’?” he whispered back, pretended shock, and almost a rebuke. “I’ll be extra nice.” I just clung to his neck and nodded.

“Yes; that will hold me together.”