Star­ing off in the liv­ing room of my par­ents house, I sit here stunned. The week­end visit is so sim­i­lar to every other visit but deeply different.

Janet Carey, my lov­ing grandma, passed away early Fri­day morn­ing in her apart­ment in Ket­ter­ing. Since the pass­ing of her hus­band, William Carey, she’s been liv­ing One Lin­coln Park, a senior liv­ing retire­ment com­mu­nity that facil­i­tated her inde­pen­dent liv­ing with a staff to care for the aging. While some of her neigh­bors were slowly fad­ing, requir­ing spe­cial atten­tion, Janet was sharp and mobile. Her hip injury was her only phys­i­cal set back that I remember.

Liz and I were tak­ing our lunch break when I got a call from my dad. When I answered the phone, he said that he didn’t have good news. I thought it was some­thing about work. If I would have noticed the change in his voice or the sound of tears held back, I would not have been stunned to hear that his mom, grandma Carey, passed away.

Late in the night Thurs­day, or early Fri­day morn­ing, she went to go to the bath­room and her heart gave out. When morn­ing came she did not push the but­ton in her apart­ment, sig­ni­fy­ing she was up and awake. The staff came to check in on her. They knocked, called for her, opened the door and found her in the bath­room. Mar­i­anne was the first to know and called my dad. My par­ents got off work and headed over to the apart­ment. When they got there, the coro­ner and police offi­cer were just leav­ing the apart­ment. The coro­ner men­tioned that she did not have a heart attack or seizure. No suf­fer­ing. Her heart just gave out. She was 88 years old.

This week­end, we pre­pared for the view­ing and funeral. For the view­ing, I was able to serve my par­ents by assem­bling a scrap­book of Grandma through the years. I used that project and many oth­ers to focus away from the sor­row. At the view­ing, I started to feel the sad­ness catch­ing up with me. It wasn’t until after my read­ing at the funeral that I was be to fully weep. So many mem­o­ries were good. I wish I had made more. So many times I thought about vis­it­ing. I wish I had vis­ited more. We moved to south­ern Indi­ana to be close to our fam­ily. I hope it wasn’t too late.

I under­stand most peo­ple who read this, which isn’t many any more, may not be able to con­nect with my grandma’s pass­ing but I urge you: spend time with your fam­ily. You never know how much time you have.

Media

To honor my grand­mother, I will be attach­ing media com­mem­o­rat­ing her life from the infor­ma­tion I have. This is a video of their wed­ding in 1951.