Colby Grandmother on his Mom's side passed away yesterday just after midnight.
Norma Nell Harris was her name. We spent most the day at his parents house just hanging out. Kathy is doing fine, she's somber but not extremely emotional. This has been coming for a long time and Kathy has been preparing for months. I'm glad she did, no one else in the family was willing to face it the way she did.
She passed in the night, alone unfortunately but the way I see it, that's fine this women was quite a strong women and didn't need anyone there for her to pass on. She was visited consistently and had family all around her the day and night before and got to see every one recently. She suffered from Kidney failure and was having kidney dialysis for the past year. She had an unfortunate stroke a few months ago that landed her in Heritage home. This is where she spent the last few months of her life. We tried to surround her in things from home and had the family portrait there so she could start recognizing all her family members. She went in and out of confusion but always seemed to remember us when we visited. It was wonderful to see how she would light up when my kids would enter the room. She got such and angelic smile.
We will miss her and keep in mind all the teaching of which she gave often. She was a fountain of knowledge and and inspiration for that, in my mind.
Family will be flying in from Tennessee and Montana. She is now with her mother father and brother and daughter Lauri, having the time of her existence I am sure. Colby and I have been going down a new path this last year and have been enlightened on a new way of thinking about life death and the times in between. So this passing was looked at in a whole new light and was very comforting knowing what she was encountering this time around.
Norma's viewing is on Thursday and her funeral, Friday morning. Colby will serve as a casket barrier as well as all the other grandchildren of Norma's.
We unfortunately never got real close to her. She was a stone that you couldn't brake and there for, never saw much of her except holidays and birthdays when she would come for dinner. Of course after a passing like this you always regret that and wish you tried harder, I try and keep this in mind with the remaining grandparents and strive to bring my kids closer to their Grandparents for this reason. I wish for them all to be great friends and form close relationships to all of them in their own special ways.
Beth, Norma's younger daughter, was very close with her and will be sorely missed by her family. They seemed to form that mother daughter bond early in the relationship as a child but Kathy's childhood was extremely different than Beth's. Beth doesn't seem to understand how she can be so non-emotional. Kathy and Beth had different fathers Beth's was a typical father as Kathy's was very abusive and hurt her often, physically. So when the times Norma didn't intervene, Kathy got tough and closed out some of her family. I feel the tension often and wonder what really went on but Kathy is not very open to sharing the stories.
I feel bad for the both of them, I hope all works out afterwards once Norma is buried and they start moving on. I guess the second shift of hard work starts now cleaning out the house and passing it off to Norma's ex husband Henry who lives in Arizona, yet another we are not close to. I've seen him twice. We do always get a card for Christmas an Colby gets one every birthday but that's about it.
Norma,I'm sure you found your way home and are being guided in your next journey, we love you and will miss all your elaborate detailed stories you gave, you had a brilliant mind and for that we had some interesting conversation.
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