A time to live and a time to die

As you remember in my very first post, I said that I would talk about personal loss. Well, a certain death has touched my heart.

After Katrina, my gradfather suffered two strokes a week within a week. That along with his alzheimer's condition, it rendered him weak without his ability to speak, eat and clean and dress himself. So we were told that a nursing home would was the only way to give him proper care.

One day, while waiting for the nurses to finish dressing him for dinner. I met a lady named Ruby. Ruby Johnson was a classy lady whose body was weakened by a stroke. The first day we met, she told me about the first time her grandkids came to see her and how nervous they were just like me. We talked for a bit and I made my visit and left.

As time went on, I found myself visiting her after visiting grandpa. We would talk about my classes and she would tell me about putting her daughter and son through school by working two jobs and helping them keep their grades up to help them get grants to help her out. She was proud to meet a black student at Tulane.

As we became closer, I started cooking extra Sunday dinner so I could bring it to her because the nursing home was hella horrible. We would sit in her room (cause she didnt want anyone to ask her for something) and watch tv. She had pretty pictures of her kids and grandkids on her walls and books on her nightstand next to her television where she watched Riffleman everyday like clockwork.

Since my grandpa's body is weakening and his condition will never improve, mama and I have tried to prepare for his passing. We dont know when but we have tried to have everything done for that day.

Well, the day after the election, I went to the nursing home and I found Ruby talking to my grandmother who made her visit like clockwork from noon to four. They sat me down and told me stories of how life was when they were my age. The "no colored" signs and sitting at the back of the bus and the police dogs attacking them and their friends.

Well for two hours, I heard her talk about how its important it is for my generation to change the world and follow the words of Martin Luther King to unite this country.

Well, on my visit Monday, I went to see gramps but he was asleep. I noticed something was missing. The Guilding Light was on but Miss Ruby wasnt in her regular spot. So while looking for her, gramps nurse pulled me over and told me thruth: Miss Ruby died of a heart attack in her sleep Friday night. My heart dropped. I couldnt cry because it didnt hit me until I looked in her room and saw that all of her pictures and books where gone but the television was showing Riffleman.

I thought I was ready to use my prepared sense of knowing what to do but that didnt work at all. I felt that loss and the plans flew out of the window. So is the preparation of death worth the planing that it takes or does the loss of life a way that you have to work on your feet and your check your feelings? In this case, the death was so sudden so the plans went for naught.

I will miss you Miss Ruby. You were a class all your own.