In the Summer of
1999, my grandmother had a stroke. She was ill for 3 months until she passed
away on September 9, 1999. This was a difficult time for all of us. My grandma,
or Mommo as just about everyone called her, was not able to recognize my Mother
and called her “Cynthia”. She would often snap at me for no reason
as I was taking care of her, helping her up the stairs or bringing her lunch.
She lived in our house with my mother and I (my father had moved to Cincinnati
a few months before for work) so we were constantly surrounded with a mere shell
of what my grandmother once was.
At the beginning of August, Mom and Dad decided to let Sarah travel, by herself,
to England to visit her friend Dave, an old friend whom she had known for 3
years and had visited a year before with Mom and Dad. She was to stay for 3
weeks, and live like an Englishwoman. She wanted to get away-the sight of Mommo,
our beloved grandmother, wasting away to nothing hurt her, and Mom didn’t
think, at 15 years old, she could handle the emotional stress of taking care
of her.
We kept in constant contact with her over the 3 weeks she was away. The following
e-mails are from this time.
To: aejo16@aol.com
From: sarbear269@aol.com
Subject: Hey!
Hey D, wad up?? I just popped on real fast to send you a little picture that David edited for you :) Hope you enjoy it!! :) Today we have been to the zoo (me, David, Tom, Pet, James) which was alot of fun! There were more monkeys then you could shake a stick at!!! :) It was like monkey after monkey after monkey!! :) We are going out in a little while...fun....so anyway, I'll talk to you later!! Bye bye!!
Sar
To: aejo16@aol.com
From: sarbear269@aol.com
Subject: Re: hey!
Hey D!!!! WEll, I HOPE you are having a really nice day today!! :) After me and David got back from shoppin', we were playin' Dungeon Keeper and we decided to take some more pictures of my good friend Mr. Imp along with pics of me and the whole group of us! (one is edited so you know who is who ;) Its been really overcast and kinda rainy today :( Just a drizzly rain, not a downpour. ICKY! So anyway, me and David are here at home by ourselves havin' and laugh and such 'cause everybody left us....I hope everything is going ok with you guys and Mommo and if Mom ever gets sad, please give her extra comforting for me! I worry about her 'cause I can't be there with her! :( And I don't want her to go into depression on us 'cause that would really suck! Thur. night we are going to a Nepalese restaurant which I have no idea what THATS like but I guess I'll find out, huh? :) And then one night we hope to HOPEFULLY go to an ITALIAN restaurant! Whoo-hoo!! :) David has to work tomorrow-Sat. boooo!! :( SO maybe I'll scan a couple more pics of *NSYNC for ya! :) Well, thats about it, dogg, SOOOOO I'll talk to you later!! Bye bye!! Love ya D!!
Sar
P.S. TRAINS ROCK!!!!!!!!!
Most of our e-mails,
before my grandmother’s illness and after, were like the e-mails Sarah
sent to me. During her trip, mine to her were much more dim, dark, sad. Her
e-mails were a bright spot in my day, a release from reality. It is just one
of many ways we have helped each other through rough times and become stronger
because of it.