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Happy, shaking, gone. Those were the stages of my Grandma Gail between 2009 and 2011. I suppose I should start from the very beginning . . .
My grandma was a happy person. She was well-known around my small town for making dresses. Wedding, prom, anything, really. Her husband (my grandpa) was a teacher at the local high school. She was so happy. This was the time when she would help anyone who needed it, all of my aunts and my dad and his brother had friends over almost everyday. She made friendship tea, which was the only tea I would drink. I always ran around in the desert in her yard, and come back crying with a cactus stuck in my leg.
In 2001, my grandfather died, and my grandma lived on her own. Every weekend, most of my cousins (I had 18 in total on my dad's side), would have a huge sleepover at her house. We'd BBQ, have a campout, anything! And Sunday afternoon, everyone would go home, happy. But, the shaking started early in 2009, my Grandma Gail started developing Alzheimer and Parkinsons. She would be shaking everytime we would come up, and those weekends slowly started disappearing. Then, in January of 2010, my grandmother went to a retirement home in Palm Desert, five minutes away from my aunt.
In March of 2010, my dad died. We couldn't tell my Grandma when it happened, because we didn't want her to overreact at the home, because she has had outbursts already (which, from the stories I heard, were quiet hilarious). We told her a few days before the funeral. She showed up, still shaking, but had a smile on her face, like the smile she had whenever we had the cousins weekend.
In 2011, my Grandma Gail passed away in the home. She was 74 years old. We had the funeral at our local Catholic church. When we had the slideshow of her with songs at the reception, I watched it over and over. I saw her in all three stages: Happy, Shaking, and then she was gone.
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