Loss of grandma, loss of childhood

Everyone reaches a point in their lives when they are forced to grow up, and for me it was Sept. 28, 2005, the day my grandmother died.

Although my grandma, Arlene Fanion, gave the family plenty of warning she wanted to go at a young 76 years old, I never actually believed it would happen. How can one prepare for the loss of someone they never went without? Even after a year, I cannot bring myself to realize she is never visiting again. My mother feels her mom is just on vacation somewhere, and I think we all feel that way. The only difference is, we cannot call or visit.

It's amazing the way events turned out. Before she died, I felt too busy with work to see her, especially since I had to take a ferry and drive about 45 minutes to where she and her two sisters lived near Port Angeles. But the weekend before she died, I suddenly became ambitious and decided I was going to fulfill my many promises to visit.

Five months before my visit, she needed a stint in one of her arteries and survived with just one little vein pumping blood into her heart. Visiting her in the hospital was a miserable experience, but I was confident she could survive if she wanted to. When I got her alone, I told her I needed her to live. She indicated she understood. Call me selfish, but she was the last grandparent I had left. At 21 years old, I needed that last bit of childhood. My begging and the support of the rest of the family must have worked because she built her strength well enough to leave the hospital.

In September, my boyfriend (now former) and I got into the car and drove up to visit from Snohomish. We only planned to spend a day there, but ended up spending Friday night, Saturday and Sunday afternoon in Port Angeles. During that time we took my grandma deer-watching, visited a park and went out to eat.

The biggest difference, and what told me something major was wrong with her, was her appetite. My grandma always loved to eat. Butter was her favorite topping, and she used it on everything. That weekend, she had no appetite. She was also losing weight. She hated taking the pills the doctor gave her. After everyone went to bed Friday night, I cried. She was only hanging on for us, and even that couldn't keep her alive forever.

The weekend was wonderful, and the best part was I forgot my purse when I left the home on my way to the ferry. I was angry at myself because I always forget things and a 45-minute trip back to their home was so inconvenient. I couldn't ask them to drive all the way out to the ferry, could I?

Luckily, they noticed my purse missing and left shortly after we did. Leaving the purse behind worked in my favor because I saw my grandma one last time.

She died that Wednesday peacefully, leaving behind eight grandchildren, one great-grandson, two sisters, a son and a daughter. We are all suffering the loss, and we are all growing up faster than we wanted. My mom feels pain because she knows people live into their 80s and still have a parent. My Aunt Barbara feels pain because she lost a best friend. I feel pain because I cannot go back and spend more time with grandma.

I will never forget our yearly "day outs," when my grandma took my siblings and I out on a date alone with her. I will never forget that every time she visited after a long absence, my height got closer to hers, until finally she seemed to shrink. She had a sweet, naive way of living that made any problem seem insignificant.

I won't forget any of those things about her and so many others. But if there is one thing you should know about my grandma, you should know she is still here. Even death cannot keep a grandma from her grandchild, a mother from her children. She shaped the many people she came into contact with, and she is still a part of our lives.

Chrystal Doucette is the Columbia Basin Herald education and health reporter, and still misses her grandmother.