Back several years ago when my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, my brother played a video with a song on it that my parents had found that summed up the last 50 years of their marriage. The song was called, "Don't Blink" by Kenny Chesney. In the song, Kenny sings about an old man being interviewed on the evening news and he had just turned 102 years old. The news man asks him what his secret to life is and the man says not to blink because at one point you are six years old and then you take a nap and you are now twenty-five and married and then next thing you know fifty years has gone by. The idea is that if you blink you may miss all of your life and not see all around you. In other words, live life and remember everything...the good memories and the bad memories...because we don't really know how much life we have.
This is my fourth 50 Shades of Pink week for my Grandma and the color of my pink nail polish really goes along with the topic well for this week. My nail color this week is Pink Blink. This is a nail color that I had purchased recently. When I saw the name of the nail color, the blog post for this week was already forming in my head...and that is how I knew I had to buy that color. So, how does this nail color, other than the color itself, relate to memories of my grandma?
So many people have said, as they have offered statements of sympathy, "well, she was 96....she had lived a long happy life." It has bothered me so much when people have said that as she was my grandma....I wanted her to live forever. I know that's not possible, but somewhere along the line it feels that I must have blinked. I am 39. The same age my mom was when my grandma's first husband, my first grandpa, passed away. I was 6 at the time. While I have all sorts of great memories of my grandma through the years I always thought there would be more. Time for more. When she was diagnosed with the Leukemia on December 22nd and we were told we had weeks to months with her, I knew we had to make every memory last. That weeks to months diagnosis turned into a days to weeks diagnosis a week later and within a few days of that it was days to hours. Somewhere in those two weeks she was with us, (and only one week was she not comatose....), I blinked. And then she was gone. And now...in three days...it will be officially one month since she passed. In twenty-three days she would have turned 97. Yes...I still grieve. Sometime I think its because I feel somewhere along the line I must have blinked.
Today isn't just a pink nails day though. Today at the Notre Dame Women's Basketball game they celebrate the Pink Zone. The Pink Zone is the Women's Basketball world's way of bringing awareness to Cancer in Women, with it primarily being about Breast Cancer. While my grandma died of blood cancer and not breast cancer, today I and my niece will be sporting special pink shirts with angel wings on them in memory of my Grandma at this game. Grandma loved Angels. But she also loved to have fun. One memory that I am fortunate to even have a picture of is when my grandma attended a Women's Notre Dame Basketball game a few years ago and they had handed out Pom Poms, noise makers, and hats that were a lime green color. (It may have been a New Year's Eve game even.) Grandma sported the pom poms in her hair, the hat on her head, and whatever else that showed her spirit and support of the team and took a picture. The greatest part of the picture is her happy smile. It's a silly picture but one who showed that Grandma wasn't blinking....she was making memories. One that she would tell me about for years to come.
Recently I heard a story from the birth mom of one of the children (that we had been foster parents for recently). This little 3 1/2 year old had gotten to know "Busia" (as she was known to the Great Grandchildren) and had the opportunity to be at her bedside a couple times before the little girl went home to her birth mom two days before my Grandma died. "Princess" as we called this little girl, had gone to the bedside when Grandma was in her coma already and told Grandma that she hoped she would get better but that if she couldn't that she could go be an Angel and that it would be ok. This from a 3 1/2 year old little girl! After the children went home that Thursday I went and asked my Grandma (even though she was in a coma) that if she were to pass away and go to heaven that she would be the guardian angel to the two little ones that we had loved so much that had returned home. She couldn't respond and I wondered if she really heard me. This week, my husband and I had the opportunity to go sit and visit with the kids and their birth mom when the mom told us a story about how Princess would wake up in the middle of the night and draw a picture and then go back to sleep. A couple (2-3) nights after they returned to live with her, Princess woke up in the middle of the night and drew and colored a picture of a ghost like figure and then draw and colored a picture of an Angel before going back to sleep. This had been the Saturday night/Sunday morning after my Grandma had passed. Less then 24 hours after she had passed.
I know now that I didn't blink these last 39 years....I have more memories than I have room in my brain for....but the loss of future memories is where the sadness comes from. I know I am blessed for the 39 years of memories I have. Today as I wear my pink shirt with the angel wings, I know that she will be with me. My angel by my side. And don't worry...I won't blink.
Pink Blink by Sally Hansen Nail, courtesy of myself!
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