Faint

A while ago I was estranged from my grandparents because of a [rather big] fuck up on my part. We didn't speak to each other for a few weeks.

Today I spoke to my grandmother.

For what was probably the last time.

I won't know until I know, I guess. But they (mom and oma) are talking about assisted suicide -- she's in pain, and says she'd rather go today than tomorrow. As for me and mom, well, we'll miss her just as much whether she goes today or tomorrow.

It's kind of...I don't know. Shocking, I guess. I mean, I've known this was coming for a while. I just didn't really believe it. I sort of blithely believed she'd keep on trucking into her 100s.

She's 90. In September of this year she'd turn 91. We were amazed she made it to 90, and then to her 12-year anniversary with Opa, and then to Christmas, and then to their 12.5 anniversary, in May. She's been saying it's time since before her birthday last year; so when she made it past May 19th I just kind of assumed she'd keep on going, forever.

I just kind of assumed that she'd see me go back to school. Graduate. Have a kid. Get a book published. Make a film -- a big one.

I just kind of assumed that she'd write her memoirs. Tell me all the stories I don't remember her telling me in my childhood. Come up and visit us in Powell River.

Be there for one last Christmas.

Granted, we made last Christmas "the last Christmas", because of her surety of demise. But it didn't happen, and well....

I fooled myself good.


So I told her I loved her and that she was the best Oma in the world, that I could never ask for a better Oma, ever, and that she was an awesome fiery feisty woman and that I tell everyone how awesome she is, and they agree.

It's all true.

And even though it hasn't happened yet, I know it's going to, and I can't seem to stop crying. I know it will happen soon. If not tonight, tomorrow. There was Death in her voice. And acceptance of that. I've heard it before.

And what hurts the most...is I didn't go down to Vancouver with mom this time, because I had to hold the fort for her up here. Get things done. You know. The usual. Take care of Major. Someone has to stay.

Someone has to stay and it may as well be me, because I can't give Oma and Opa the care and attention Mom can. No one can. Mom's the Perfect Daughter. I hope someday I'm like her.

I also hope she doesn't go through this slow death, this terrible old age that we've watched Oma suffer through. I hope my mom remains spry and young into her 90s, and drops dead suddenly of a heart attack when hiking in the woods with a wolfdog, so Silva can welcome her HOME, to the True Woods. That is what she wants, and what I want for her -- because it's the best ending she could ask for. And I don't want my future children watching their Oma go through what I watched mine go through.


Tine Laffra-van Loon-Haagsma was born September 10, 1917, in Holland. She was a nurse during World War II while her fiance was part of the resistance. He ended up spending four years in a Nazi prison, while she waited patiently for him. After the war they got married and had my mom on June 29th, 1948, in Eindhoven, Holland. When my mom was 3 they moved to Alberta, Canada, and Oma got pregnant again, with my Aunt Ariel.

Ariel had Lupus and Jake (my grandfather) was a smoker with a heart condition. He died in 1985, the year before I was born -- his death prompted my mom to get pregnant (at 38 years of age) because it waked her up to the fact that people eventually got old and died. Ariel had a string of failed marriages and relationships and finally killed herself in my early childhood, to end not only the pain of a broken heart but the day to day physical pain of living with Lupus.

When Oma was 75, we bought her a red sportscar, because she was that kind of lady. She drove it until she could no longer do so.

My parents' marriage fell apart in due time. Oma worked as an accountant at my parents' law firm, and she kept on going there everyday though my dad yelled at her, for years, until he finally fired her.

Throughout our financial hardships, Oma helped my mom and myself immensely. If not for her we would have been on the street long ago.

In her 80s Oma went back to school and took a Writing for Children course, so she could pen stories she'd told me in my childhood about the Cat of Nine Lives.

In 1995, when she was 78, Oma remarried a man named Gerry Laffra. They met through a personals ad in the Dutch paper. They have remained happily in love for the past 12.5 years.

I think it's a great way to end one's life, to be in love till the very end.

I'm just sad that she has to be in so much pain, and has been for so long. She's endured enough pain in her life. She certainly doesn't deserve any more.

So I am glad that she will be at peace, finally.

But it won't make me miss her any less.