Granny.

Posted On December 16, 2024

Samantha Colleran, December 2024

Note: This is something I’ve been wanting to share for some time, but as mentioned throughout this post, I never knew how to approach it. The lack of capitalization is because 1) I type just about everything in lowercase letters, autocapitalization is turned off on all my devices, and 2) this was a total brain dump, and changing everything to be ‘proper’ felt like it was taking away from the rawness of it all. Anyway, thank you for reading, and for sticking around during this really shitty, difficult year.

—-

for those who haven’t seen my stories or aren’t on instagram much, you may have missed brief mentions of my lack of writing this year. i’ve felt like i should share that reasoning for some time, but i never knew how to, so i’m just going to ramble about it. on july 6, my family said goodbye to my granny after a long term battle with dementia and compression fractures that led her to be in a lot of pain during the final couple of years of her life. despite a little over five months passing, the reminder of her loss will randomly hit me like a ton of bricks. i have tried to write about this many times, but none of my attempts have felt “right” or “correct”. grief and loss aren’t linear, as many of the songs i’ve turned to during my grieving have reminded me. there is no proper way to discuss this. so, here it is, in all of its imperfection. 

i’d like to start by telling you all a bit about granny, for those who did not have the pleasure of knowing her. she was born in leicester, england in 1940 during world war 2 while bombs were being dropped. i think the story of her birth set the stage for the whirlwind of wild life events she’d experience. granny had a dream of coming to america from a young age; she was about four or five when she met an american soldier who shared a piece of american candy with her, and from then on she was determined to get to america. when she was 21, she was able to fulfill that dream when she applied for an au pair service and was placed with a family in rockaway beach. it was here she met my grandpa jim and got married, had my mom and uncle timmy, and would remain here until her final breath. 

you may remember the mini playlist i made for my uncle timmy, who tragically passed away in 2006. eight years prior, granny lost the love of her life, my grandpa jim, to a heart attack. granny had a very soft spot for the men in her life, so to lose her number one guy crushed her. she was the toughest and strongest person i ever knew; being able to collect herself to carry on after losing her husband, only to lose her son less than a decade later, and then live for just about eighteen more years… i don’t think i’d have the strength. when she passed, a lot of my family members shared with my brother and i that having the two of us around was a major reason why she continued to live; she loved the granny title and did everything she could to be an amazing one. she never got to share the pleasure of being a grandparent with grandpa jim, but it just meant double the love from her. it tore me apart to hear that sentiment initially, but looking back i’m proud of her for fighting every single day to be there for us.

granny was smart. she loved geography and was always mad that we didn’t use paper maps to get places. you could point anywhere on a map of england and she’d be able to tell you random history about the place. this information was absolutely important to me while growing up and falling in love with bands from england because i could ask her, “what do you know about (place in england)?”, and she’d be able to tell me a fact. puzzles and reading were pastimes she adored, mystery novels were her favorite. she loved her shows; law & order, death in paradise, and murdoch mysteries were a few she could recite every line of. she was a master in the kitchen, making the best shepherd’s pie, infamous vegetable soup that my friends and i would fight over at school when we came back from breaks with home cooked food, and scones that are beloved even by people who never met her face to face. she loved all of my brother and i’s friends and deemed a special few her extended grandchildren. she loved to play a role in our daily lives. she took pride in packing our school lunches and setting the table with an after school snack, eager to hear about our days. she bought us laptops when we started middle school and updated ones for college, wanting to play a part in furthering our education. there were interests my brother and i have that she never fully understood, but still took the time to cut out articles from the paper to show us. i still have some of those articles, and i’m really glad i kept them. i could go on, but all of this is to say she was and will forever be an incredible woman that i am so grateful to have had for just under 23 years. 

i made the decision to move home when i was done with college to take the time to find a full time music industry job and save up some money, and i’m so beyond thankful to my parents for allowing me to do so. being home meant watching a lot of granny’s decline. i will spare the more gruesome details, but i learned a lot more about dementia than i ever intended to, how strong my family truly is, and how to be a caretaker in many aspects of the word. i’m proud of the fact i was able to take the tiniest bit of stress off of my parents shoulders just by being an extra set of hands to help when needed. it is something that has impacted me forever, i know not many people my age have been in my shoes and it’s a unique experience to witness firsthand. because i was home and felt a sense of responsibility to step up and play a role in helping my parents care for her, i unintentionally put a pause on parts of life, one of those being writing. i fell out of putting myself and my work out there, it felt like a chore and was nowhere near a priority, i had nothing interesting or fun to say. i just didn’t (and still don’t) know how to explain to anyone that i took a pause on posting because watching my grandmother slowly die was not all that inspiring. there’s no pretty way to put it, that was my reality for months. 

music was a saving grace for me during this time, like it always is. i found so much solace in ariana’s eternal sunshine, zayn’s room under the stairs, kacey’s deeper well, and even charli’s incredibly immersive brat universe. i revisited the foo fighters but here we are for the first time in its entirety since its 2023 release, it was comforting and painful simultaneously. seeing them perform some of these songs live two weeks after her passing made me sob until there was nothing left in me. there was a moment during “under you” when dave broke, i stood in my mom’s arms and we both cried as we watched his emotions waver, “someone said i’ll never see your face again / part of me just can’t believe it’s true”. even just thinking of that moment brings tears to my eyes. we don’t know dave personally, but having just experienced such an intense loss made the lyrics more poignant than ever, his emotions were our emotions.

when i saw hozier on june 7, granny was in the hospital. i debated whether or not i should go, but my parents assured me there was nothing i could do to help granny, or them, so i went. i cried so much during that week, the uncertainty of her declining health forcing me to prepare for the worst. i feared getting a call during the show saying she wasn’t here anymore, thankfully that didn’t happen. i cried for a number of reasons that night, and i had two of my best friends to hold me through it all. for a small fraction of time, i felt a sense of security and happiness. a week later my mom and i saw niall. granny had only been home from the hospital for a couple of days, but my dad assured us that he would be able to handle whatever happened and that we needed to go. it was a beyond perfect night, and a real reminder of the healing power of music. we met the incredible team behind a fan page called momsgonenialled. amy shared her story of niall’s music getting her through her chemotherapy sessions as she fought breast cancer, the lyrics providing her comfort during an incredibly challenging time in her life. although different circumstances, i understood the escape she found in niall’s lyrics. i cried the entire night, repeatedly saying out loud “i didn’t think we were going to be here”. “fire away” was exactly what i needed to hear that night; the song was already something i turned to during difficult times, but on june 14 the words “even if i don’t understand / you can talk to me” felt like a long, tight embrace. 

the last week of granny’s life was intense. she started to decline even faster than any of us could have imagined. my brother came home during this time. the day he was driving home, my dad and i sat with granny for a few minutes trying to give her her medication. my dad puts on a tough guy act, but he’s a major softie with a big heart. he was so patient and gentle with granny, especially during the final few weeks. he sat in front of her, i sat on the arm of the chair. “come on mary, you have to take your medicine”. she just stared off into space, we had to do everything for her. after we got the meds into her system, i stayed in my spot on the arm of the chair. we put on the incredible dr. pol for her, a show she loved so much but eventually stopped watching as the dementia worsened. i tried talking to her, making little comments about what came across the screen, but she wasn’t processing any of it. she eventually moved her body as best she could a little closer to me, resting her head on my chest and wrapping an arm around me. this moment is one i will cherish forever, and it is one that will always make me emotional to think about. granny wasn’t super affectionate, she showed her love in other ways. i sat with her, refusing to move and taking as much time with her as i could. my ass hurt, but i couldn’t let this moment go. i laid my cheek on top of her head and let the tears fall down my face as i spoke out loud to her, both terrified and accepting of the fact that we didn’t have much longer. i don’t know how long we actually sat like that, but eventually my dad came back and asked why i was crying. i shrugged and said “i don’t know”. then justin walked in, and watching him watch her shattered me. you can tell someone who isn’t living your day to day life just how bad it is, but hearing it and seeing it are two different things. the next day, she had a jolt of energy. she was so excited that justin was home, not remembering the day prior where she used up every ounce of her strength to get out of her chair so she could hug him, or grunting out the words “don’t be sad” as she watched his eyes fill with tears upon taking in her state of being. a few hours later, her visiting nurse came for a final check in, and that was it. it was time for morphine.

the next day, july 4th, a holiday she loved more than any american born person i know, she was nestled peacefully in her hospital bed. there wasn’t much to celebrate this year given the state of the current world, and granny’s state, but we tried. my family friends host a beautiful gathering every year, but everything about it felt strange. my parents came in shifts, never leaving granny alone. justin, his girlfriend natalie, and i stayed for the duration of the gathering. i cried a couple of times thinking of granny two houses away in a vegetative state, everyone around me feeling my pain as they all knew and loved granny dearly. we went home around 9 and watched love island. it’s funny how random things like a reality tv show can be so comforting. these people were on an island in fiji fighting over relatively silly things and forming connections with friends and potential lovers, while we were using their experience as a distraction from granny slipping away in real time. 

lots of friends and family came over on friday and saturday. those two days felt like two weeks. i was tired from doing nothing. all we did was take turns sitting in granny’s room, listening to her breathing, and talking to her. the morning that she died, i was in her room with my dad. he randomly said, “did you know the most common time for people to die is 11am? i googled it.” i did not know that, but now i have this piece of information that feels really weird to know, and i guess you know it now, too. granny did actually die a little after 11am. my parents had tranquil instrumentals playing in her room thursday and most of friday. i told them that their music choice was stupid and they needed to put on something she would actually like. eventually they listened and put on some rat pack/swing music. my parents, brother, and i surrounded her as she took her final breath, frank sinatra’s “secret love” playing as we shed countless tears. she even shed a tear, i can’t remember if my mom or dad wiped it softly off her cheek. i don’t know if people do that when they die, but it made me think that she was as sad to leave us as we were to let her go. despite the sadness, it was the exact sendoff she wanted; at home, her family around her, and of course she waited for her “frankie baby” to play. as a family we’re really proud of being able to fulfill her wishes, even if she wasn’t in the right mindset to be aware of the fact we did. 

when you lose someone with dementia, you say goodbye more than once. it’s a very complicated thing to experience, mourning someone who is still physically here but is mentally slipping away. i had a number of goodbyes to granny in my head, to her face, and the final time i saw her face before her casket was closed. i tried so hard to study every single part of her; the shape of her nose, her short and thin eyelashes, snow white hair with random strands of gray, her strong nails which had a light layer of pink nail polish on, her veiny hands, the birthmark on the right side of her chin. there’s never enough time, and as the four of us stood with her one final time, all i could think was “i don’t want to go”. i try every single day to hold onto the memory of her laugh, her voice, the sound of her feet shuffling on the floor. i desperately cling to the memories of her final months because they’re the last ones i have of her. there are better ones i could think of, but sometimes they feel so far away. i remind myself constantly that she is no longer suffering in her own body or mind, but i miss her so much it hurts to think about. i hate that dementia took her from us, i hate that there was nothing else we could have done to ease her pain. 

i often think of andrew garfield when navigating my grief. he lost his mother to cancer in 2019, and the way he speaks about the impact that loss had on his life is, for lack of a better term, spectacular. he puts the exact feelings into words and speaks so eloquently, even before i lost granny his words struck something deep inside of me. on the late show with stephen colbert in 2021, andrew says he hopes the grief never leaves him, the tears he sheds represent the unexpressed love he has for his mother. he talks about time, and how there is never enough of it. he was on anderson cooper’s all there is podcast in october to have an in depth conversation about grief, and it is one of the most beautiful conversations i’ve ever heard. i find a lot of comfort and validation in his words. you can listen to the anderson cooper episode on spotify or watch below.

there’s a lot more that can be said about granny, how her loss has changed so much for me, and how confusing and weird this time has been. i’m sure i’ll find more ways to speak about her as time goes on, but i’ll end it here for now. 

granny, i love ya.