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Rochester Local

A Year of Grieving: What I’ve Discovered

On a Tuesday evening in July 2018, my mother-in-love Jeanne passed away after a long, courageous, difficult battle with colon cancer.

Though it was a year ago, I remember those moments well. My husband Matt was at the hospice in Owatonna with Jeanne; I was here in Rochester with our daughters because I had work and the girls needed some kind of normalcy. We had been spending the past few weeks back and forth between Rochester and Owatonna but decided the girls and I would come back to Rochester so we could return to a routine. After work, I called in an order for a pizza and drove to my former place of employment to drop something off before I had to pick up the girls from daycare.

Afterward, I got into the car and immediately my phone rang. It was Matt. I thought “oh no” but willed my voice to be steady as I answered.

“Hello?”

“Mamisoa, my mom just passed away,” Matt said in a broken voice. I was dreading hearing those words.

“What happened?” I dumbly asked. Thankfully, he understood it as me asking how did she pass away.

“Okay,” I told him after he finished telling me the story, “I’m going to pick up the girls, go home, grab some things and we’ll drive over.” I told him I loved him and hung up the phone. My eyes burned as my heart raced. And then the tears came. I couldn’t believe it.

Her death wasn’t a surprise. She had been in hospice for about two and a half weeks at that point and according to her nurses, should have passed away a week ago. But true to my mother-in-love’s spirit, she was a fighter. (Secretly, I think she was holding out for her 61st birthday, which was in two days.) Still, how do you ever prepare for the death of a loved one?
I gave myself ten minutes to bawl in the car before I shifted the gear to drive to go get the girls. There was no rush, Matt said, but I wanted to hold our babies close to me and then get to my husband and hold him close, too. As I drove to the girls, amidst the tears, I couldn’t help but smile at how beautiful it was that Jeanne was obviously there for Matt’s birth and he got to be there for her death. I’m glad they had those moments together. I’m thankful he was present and got to be with her in her final moments earthside.

The next few days were a blur between seeing family, the visitation, and her burial. I remember crying a lot, especially when I looked at our daughters and thought of the fact that they would grow up without one of their grandmothers. It certainly didn’t help that the movie our girls loved watching at that time was Disney’s Coco.

Slowly, we settled back into a new normal life. Even so, I felt like I had a permanent tightness in my chest anytime I thought of Jeanne.

I dreaded the holidays after Jeanne died, especially Christmas and Easter because those were holidays I associated with her joy and spirit. As these holidays approached, I found our family trying to navigate this weird tension of deciphering how to live in the moment and create memories for the girls, yet grieve and acknowledge Jeanne’s absence. Family gatherings were especially hard because her absence was noticeably prominent. The lack of her hand-made cards on birthdays and anniversaries added to the sting and sadness of having to celebrate without her. I think one of the things I still miss the most is the weekly Sunday Facetime calls Matt had with her. I miss hearing her laughter through the phone knowing she beamed with pride watching and talking with the girls. She loved them so.

I don’t want our daughters to forget their Grandma Jeanne, and if I’m being honest, I initially felt helpless because I didn’t know how to make them not forget. Gracelyn was two-and-a-half-years-old and Maeva seven-months-old when she passed — still so young. What true memories would they have of her?

The weeks following her death, Gracelyn asked about her a lot. She asked why Grandma Jeanne wasn’t with Grandpa when he visited. When she made pretend phone calls, she would say she was talking to Grandma Jeanne and would ask her how it was being with Jesus. These moments broke my heart even more, but I am thankful for them.

Matt and I are doing our best to help our daughters remember Jeanne. I write Gracelyn and Maeva emails every time I have a memory of her and them I want them to know about. We make Grandma Jeanne’s bars, puppy chow, and brownies and talk about her love for chocolate every time they insist on “more chocolate, please!” Thankfully, they’ve picked up on some things. When Carrie Underwood’s song “See You Again” plays, Gracelyn points out that that’s Grandma Jeanne’s song. Every time they see a gnome, Gracelyn says, “hey, that’s like Grandma Jeanne’s!” And the blanket Gracelyn chooses to sleep with every night is from Grandma Jeanne.

Navigating the death part of life is hard. I hate how fickle grief is. And I despise how fleeting memories are. But I know that Jeanne is whole with Jesus. And she’s at peace. I am so glad she fought colon cancer and endured chemo treatments for so many years so she could meet our daughters. We look forward to telling this new little one we’re expecting all about his Grandma Jeanne. Her legacy of kindness, perseverance, optimism, and joy lives on in Matt and through our children. I am very, very thankful for this.

As much as we miss Jeanne’s presence here with us, I know that she wouldn’t come back if she had the choice. She is no longer suffering. She is no longer in pain. And even in our grief and missing her, we are thankful for that.

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