My grandma is dying and she just said something that broke my soul

 

I’ve always been extremely close with my grandma. I lived ten minutes away from her growing up, and I’d go to her house at least once a week, every Sunday afternoon. She taught me how to play chess, cook breakfast, how to make beds with big fancy decorative pillows, and so many other things. She’s quite literally the epitome of an angel sent from heaven. Just the sweetest, kindest soul, always willing to go out of her way to help anyone, always willing to sit with you and hold you when you needed her. It’s stupid, but she made the best toast in the world. I swear she had magic in her toaster.

She had a major stroke almost a week ago. I took time off of work to travel home and be with her and my family. She’s having a really bad series of days, and she’s rapidly declining.

I’ve been sitting with her while she lies on the couch in the living room, in an extraordinary amount of pain, just being with her. Just comforting her. She’s so scared, and she can barely get sentences out right now. She smiles and almost gets out a laugh when I tell her stupid jokes, but moving is such a pain for her that we have to help her get up, lie back down, or anything else.

I’m frustrated because her husband is a narcissist who doesn’t seem to comprehend that talking about how badly she’s doing or making jokes about her condition to other people while he’s sitting right next to her isn’t okay. I see her eyes. It terrifies her even more, and she’s already practically unable to cry even though her body is trying to.

I’ve been sitting with her all afternoon, helping her up and down, giving her water, bribing her to drink a smoothie every time I move her. It’s slow, but she’s cognizant and can answer questions and let us know what she needs. I’ll ask her if she wants her blanket on or off, if she wants to sit up or lie down, if she wants my grandpa to turn the TV volume down, etc. She’s mostly been grabbing onto my hands while I sit with her, holding my arms as hard as she can, cuddling in a way. She’s so scared. It’s breaking my heart.

She was holding onto me while we sat up together, and she started voicing that she wanted to lie back down. I helped her down, and she looked like she wanted something else.

“What can I get you, grandma?”

Through a broken, raspy, breathy voice, with tears forming in her eyes, she said something that just broke me, inside and out:

“I want to go back to how I was.”