My Grandma, Gertrude Olejniczak Winkiewicz Ritchie, was my hero...my best friend...my everything. My husband accepted the reality before we got married that my Grandma was one of the most important people in my life and the person that I trusted most....even sometimes more than God it seemed. A week ago today, at 8:05 a.m., my grandma took her last breath as her struggle with Acute Myeloid Leukemia ended. It was a diagnosis she and we only found out about two weeks prior. AML, as Hospice referred to it as, is a progressive and mostly fatal form of leukemia. It was Cancer of the Blood as my Grandma referred to it in that two weeks before she passed. My grandma had been 96....soon to be 97. Old people don't get leukemia! Or so we thought. My grandma died from Leukemia. Cancer.
Many people would say that she had a long life...that she was in a better place now...at least she wasn't suffering anymore. All I wanted to hear was that this loss sucked. Yes...I said it...it sucked. I had just lost my best friend...my confidant...my lifeline....and it sucked more than anything I had ever experienced. I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I could barely breathe.
As we prepared for the impending funeral, in order to deal with the whole ordeal, my mind shifted to the thoughts of how I could honor my grandma and get the education out there about Leukemia. Thus the creation of 50 Shades of Pink for Gertie. My grandma's favorite color was pink. Every house (all two of them) had to have a room that was pepto bismo pink. Her favorite sweater was a pink one we had just bought two years ago. As I sat at the funeral listening to the Priest speak about how my grandma was loved and that was why it hurt so much that she was now gone, I realized that I needed to do something to honor grandma. Paint my nails pink...Grandma's favorite color...and share with others what it was about my grandma that made that loss so painful..my memories.
So, please...follow this blog and my posts every Saturday as I paint my nails a new shade of Pink in honor of her and share a memory. My hopes are that these memories will bring to mind the memories of someone that you love dearly or that you loved dearly. And hopefully, it will as well bring light to educating about Cancer and leukemia. In the last year and a half I have lost 4 people in my life to cancer or leukemia. It's still out there..its not gone. While our knowing whether Grandma had leukemia or not when we did or months before would not have changed the outcome when she passed away, we know now what we could have looked for to help and comfort her earlier on.
Today, my finger nail color is Strawberry Margarita. Thank you and a shout out goes to our donor of this nail polish this week : Haircrafters Salon. (Please visit their Facebook page or website at www.hair-crafters.com ).
For more information about Leukemia and its effects or to make a donation to the advancement and treatment of blood cancer, please visit the Leukemia and Lymphoma society at www.lls.org .
Thank you Haircrafters Salon for the Strawberry Margarita nail polish that is this weeks 50 shades of Pink for Gertie color of the week.
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