[april monthly] about my grandmother (Patreon)

writing this while i have the presence of mind to talk about it a bit.
well, no, i started crying even typing that much.

still...

let's start with the follow-up from my last post:

• pandemic-wise, cass and i are probably fine. we both had probable fevers a couple weeks ago, but explained by things other than covid.
• i'm doing better physically and am no longer in pain thanks to medication. pretty sure i had a kidney infection before (hence the fever). i'm not 100% better, but probably 90.
• as for my grandma... as i've already said on discord, as a result of the virus, she passed away on the 1st.

and i guess it's finally hitting me. or something.

i want to use this post to talk about her a bit, because i probably won't anywhere else.

her name was joanne. she was plucky, optimistic to a fault, loved to travel, and put her family before everything. up until just a couple months ago she was always visiting some foreign country or another, or staying a week here and there with a relative. she really kept the group together ever since the death her own mom, less than a decade ago.
her mom lived to be 102. her father died at 93.
she was 80. i figured she'd be around for at least another decade or two.
nope.

over the past year or so she'd been struggling with a few cases of bronchitis, but beyond that she was able-bodied and sound of mind. in many ways she was much more functional than my mother, who's not even 60. my mother is disabled by several chronic conditions, and i've wondered for most of my adult life whether it would be her or my grandmother to go first.
i didn't actually want the answer. and i didn't expect to get it so soon.

and it does no good whatsoever, but i feel like-- i should've considered this sooner. i said several times since this pandemic: i'm worried about our elderly neighbor, who's in and out of the hospital all the time-- and i'm worried about my mom because of her disability.
i didn't think it would be my grandma.
like i knew she'd be at risk, but not more likely than either of the other two. and unlike those two, she had the money to afford reasonable health care, so i thought, even if she gets it, there'd be less chance it would get to this point.

my.... uh....
<insert googling sounds here>
my first cousin once-removed... ...hh, fuck it, let's just say she's my aunt, she's basically my aunt-- seems to have taken over status as the head of our family. she reached out to everyone to reconnect them and fill my grandma's shoes.
but aside from all that, she opined to me that she considers my grandma to be a victim of her political party. i think she's right.
she was, regrettably, very republican. lowkey racist, voted for trump, the works. "he's an idiot," she said, shortly after his election, "but if he can get the economy in shape..."
where's the economy now????
i don't know that this was completely preventable but maybe firing the entire pandemic response team was not a good idea?
it's not that she wasn't an intelligent woman-- she was just very indoctrinated. watched a lot of fox news.
and obviously i don't know firsthand, but my understanding is that a lot of right wing media has explicitly downplayed this disease to try and preserve trump's reputation?
i feel like there is an almost comical level of cause and effect here. 

i'm angry about it. i didn't realize that before typing this. not in like a "told you so" way but just
"fucking why."

and i started writing this post as if it were a eulogy. now look where we're at.
in my head i'm debating whether or not it's wrong to praise or mourn the memory of someone who i've just said is two steps shy of openly racist. the last time i visited her, we talked about my old job working with juvenile youth and it just did not compute for her that we had as many white clients as we did people of color. she was willing to listen to my counter arguments, but not especially responsive to them. i'm sure she meant no harm in her views, but i'm not sure none was done.

so i'm sad and grieving but the reality is that there's a lot more emotions and factors at play

because, i also feel like i've repeatedly made the mistake of thinking worse of her than she deserved. when i was first transitioning, i was afraid to come out to my dad, and i was afraid to come out to her. because-- very republican. turns out that among republicans she was remarkably pro-LGBT. i think she was hurt that i didn't believe she'd prioritize my well-being above her views. later on she even switched over to a very LGBT church-- and later left because she felt like they were too excluding of heterosexual people.... so... E for effort, i guess... but she was always great with me at least.

and for nearly all of my life, she and my mother have been on poor terms. occasionally not willing or able to speak to each other, or else just very tense and unable to connect. my mother raised me with the understanding that my grandma was a malignant narcissist-- that she wanted everything swept under the carpet and cared mainly about her appearances to others. and so aside from coming out, in every email, and every visit i played to that understanding and acted to meet her expectations regardless of my personal feelings on the matter.
and, in every case, my grandma has always shown me the utmost compassion and understanding. and she has always gone out of her way to reach out to me and provide what she could.

but i don't know; was that because i was properly meeting her implicit expectations? or was that because my mom was wrong about her, and i should have given her more of a chance?

shortly after i moved out from my mother's house last year, i chose to stop speaking with her (mother, not grandmother) for personal reasons. in that time, she and my grandma somehow suddenly reconnected, and got over the conflict they'd had for basically my mom's entire life, and were suddenly close. i'm glad they at least made up before she passed away-- but my mom is struggling with it for the same reason.
and this makes me think that my mom was wrong, and passed on her own emotional baggage with my grandma to me as a definite truth, and that she was not actually so bad.

on the other hand, it is characteristic of narcissists to play favorites, and spare no length for the interest of the child they favor. or grandchild. and i have been told multiple times since she fell ill that i was definitely her favorite grandchild, out of... a lot. so, the fact that she was always understanding to me is not much evidence either.

i have been struggling with this question of whether or not i should have trusted her more for years, and now i do not think i will get an answer.
now it is suddenly too late.

this pandemic, and this death, has forced my mom and i to start talking again. that's okay. but the timing is...

i called my mom on her birthday. it was the first time we really talked in more than a year. my grandma had encouraged me to do so, though i was already planning on it.
after talking to my mom, i got a text from my grandma. apparently she talked to my mom after me, and was relieved that we spoke again.

that text was the last i would hear from her.

that was the last my mom would hear from her.

because she was already in the hospital, on my mom's birthday, and didn't fucking tell us.

optimistic to a fault. sweep it under the rug.

and i'm sure she didn't expect to go yet either.

fever of 104. oxygen. got a ventilator. 

on sedatives for days. 

they tried her on several experimental drugs. some might've been placebos.

and then she died. on her husband's birthday.

fucking why.

--

i was hoping to feel ready to get back into the swing of things by the time this post went up... i'm still working a little bit here and there. art is relaxing when it's not making tiles. but the amount i've been crying during this and my general lethargy surrounding it suggests to me that maybe i could use a little more time after all. 

usually i do the housekeeping/reward stuff before the monthly post, but i haven't yet.
soon, for patrons who pledged/upped in march.
if you want on the credits in a certain name, let me know... high tier rewards to call in, let me know... i'll take care of the rest soon.

we'll do streams this month, but i'm not scheduling them yet.

hoping everyone will be okay..
xxxxxxxxx