GG

I'm sore from yesterday... thighs feel like concrete... will need to stretch some today... but all that doesn't matter.

GG looks to be on her last legs now. She fell on Saturday, and has not been able to stand on her own since, and yesterday did not get out of bed at all. Her two sons are now in town.

Lisa and I want this to end as quickly as possible. GG was always so full of life (I think I mentioned this before, but we have a photo of her racing dirt bikes at Point Mugu back in the '30s), and -- at least until Sunday -- her faculties have been there, and so we can only assume that she has some discouragement that her mind can't make her body do what she wants.

Friday night, when we dropped by, I asked her, "How are you doing?" and she responded with "Anyone I can." That's GG, bawdy and rowdy... that response has been infrequent of late (and even then, she hasn't used her usual follow-up -- "And the goodlooking ones twice." -- in a long, long time). But the fact that she used it at all late last week told me that she's still in there, that the faculties are still somewhat intact.

Of course, those faculties are slipping now.

Monday night, GG told Lisa after waking up from dozing that "there must be two places." Lisa could only get that GG was dreaming of a different place. Her old house back on Greenwood in Santa Monica? Heaven?

The same night, she kept saying, "He's here." While I think that may have been a reference to son David's arrival. Grandma B is sure that she's talking about Scotty, her late husband, and that he's come to escort her.

Last night, Kyle went over with Lisa. He came home with an account of what I can only call delusion: GG would hold an imaginary piece of food in one hand, and use the other hand to pick pieces off of it and put it to her mouth. After doing this for a while, she would then bite or lick the main piece in her hand (Kyle thought she was biting, Lisa and Shannon thought she was licking). And while in the telling of it, it might sound sad or pathetic, both Lisa and Shannon thought it was endearing, even cute, like a child imagining.

[it's interesting to me that her imaginary act was one that hasn't happened in real life for days, maybe even a week. GG has stopped eating. She is willing to drink but when she is brought food, she says she just ate and that she's full... the Alzheimer's? ]

The sons will go back on Friday. We don't want Grandma B to have to be in the house alone when GG passes, so we're hoping that she goes quickly. I want my memories to be of the badass bawdy broad, not the neo-child picking at imaginary fruit.

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Grandma B just called distraught. I think GG's gone, but I'm not sure... I called Lisa and am waiting for her to get back to me.

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11:50:

back from Grandma B's...

she's gone. at peace. not forgotten.

laughing hard in Heaven, telling dirty jokes, bowling a 300, and square-dancing away eternity with Scotty... all while wearing a human-sized beer-can Halloween costume!

gonna miss that badass bawdy broad... Godspeed, Tillie... we all love ya