My Grandmama ain't like yours Pt. Deux/College Finale/My Dad's Death

Expose of the janklies Pt. Deux…..

If you missed the first installment, read this first

Well, boys and girls where did I leave off when last we parted? Oh I was telling you about my Grandmother and her retarded exploits. Well….here we are…2 weeks after her death and on the brink of the “BIG CLEAN UP”. Me, my brother and my sister have to go to my grandmother’s house this Sunday to "clean up" her apt. but wait……. I’m getting ahead of myself….let me backtrack….*insert wavy memory lines here*

Now, when my father was dying, I was in my LAST semester at Michigan State University , which was the last of my 5+ year “bachelor’s program”. Little bit of explanation on that one. When I went to college, I had big ole dreams of being a doctor. So, I enrolled in the residential college( a separate college within the university) along with my roomie Traci and set out taking chemistry, calculus, physics, biology , some other “ology’s” and all that jazz. Well…. I’d say about 2 goooooooooood years into it, I decided that the doctor thing just flat-out WUDN’T gon happen. So, I was left with a bunch of classes that did not apply to ANY OTHER major that I wanted (really) and I had to “find” something to major in. This is why once I picked another major, I had to take MORE classes and honestly, I had to repeat a FEW that I got a straight up 0.0 in. *hanging head in shame*

Anywho…..I had JUST started my LAST semester when my father was diagnosed with stomach cancer. He was scheduled for surgery and had the surgery as my semester progressed. Though me & my father had a kinda tenuous relationship (see this post if you’d like the story behind the blog on this …….) I felt bad because I was NOT going to “postpone” my graduation, as it was I was going to graduate at fuckin grand total of 5 ½ years. I was NOT going to make it another semester and go for an even 6. Hell-ous no-us ! I even took 5 classes (alot for me because at this point there was nothing I wanted to see LESS than MORE work, but I wanted to graduate, so there ya have it). My father’s surgery to remove his stomach, his and part of his small intestines (and rebuild him a stomach) was successful. He was at home recuping and my brother and my sister checked on him daily. So….. I was in school working towards graduation and my then boyfriend Dave (who was at Howard Univ. working on his MS degree) called me. He was like “how’s your Dad?” I said “I think he’s on the mend, the doctors need him to heal some more before they start chemo.” He asked me “So why don’t you think about moving here and going to Grad School?” I was like “really?” He was like “yeah, I’d love to have you with me.” Maaan, my heart was doing the biggest flip-flops in the world. I think that if I’da jumped out that window at that very moment, I WOULD have flown! LOL

Anyway, I made plans to go to D.C. in January, in silence. After all, I had originally wanted to go to Howard straight outta high school, but my mother made it VERY clear that at MOST, she could pay for ONE year, if I didn’t get financial aid. And as ya'll thst went to an HBCU know, it COULD be a crap-shoot if you get fin. aid or not if your parents make over 5 cents an hour. I then decided to go to MSU because I could get in school tuition and I liked (at the time) the program I thought I wanted to be in.

Now, whenever I came home to visit my Dad, my grandmother was always cussing and fussing about my father’s ex-(so we thought at the time)wife. It turns out that he and the woman, Viola, whom I always thought he was married to, was only a fake-wife. They never married because seeing as though she AND my father were a couple of greedy asses, her sizeable pention from her dead husband would have ceased if she had remarried, soooo….they never tied the knot, so as to keep the cash flow...flowin. She regularly visited my father and sometimes spent the night to keep him company and to keep his spirits up through his arduous and painful recovery. My grandmother HATED her and I believe it was because of the fact that she “took her baby’s attention” away from her selfish ass. So, EEEEVEN though Vi was there for my FATHER’S COMFORT, my grandmother ROUTINELY called her everything BUT a child of God when she happened to come up to the hospital and Vi was there.

My father eventually went home and though he could not eat orally (because his ‘new stomach’ was still healing) he had a tube that went directly into his stomach. Well, waaaay before I had come to live with him, my Dad, had taken in a roommate, Johnny. He & Johnny were old friends and Johny had actually lived with him for a bried stint after he & my Mom divorced in the early 70’s too. So, when he went home, Johnny was there and helped take care of him, though my Dad could get up, go to the bathroom,etc by himself, Johnny still helped him bathe and delicate things of that nature.

Graduation was fast approaching, but I then got word that my father wasn’t doing well……he wasn’t gaining weight and he was just very tired all the time. He went for a dr’s appt. against his will. He didn’t want to go because he was trying to hold out and attend my graduation. His symptoms became too much for him….the day before my graduation. He was indeed put back in the hospital. They operated on him again and discovered that the cancer had spread waaaaay too extensively and had metastasized to his pancreas, spleen, gallbladder and more of his intestines. It was too severe. He was given a few months to live. It was December 10, 1993. I felt sooo very bad because I know that though my Dad and I weren’t ace-boons, he was proud of me and he was my Dad. He fussed at me in private, but according to all, he praised me in public. I could never figure him out that way……. But I knew he was proudest of all because I was the first on his side of the family to graduate from college. So, I know it hurt him to NOT be able to be there. And that hurt me too.

When I returned from school, moved all my stuff home and everything, it was right before x-mas and it was solemn. No ornamental tree, no wreaths, just cigarette smoke and a dusty, lonely house. I was happy that my boyfriend was home, because I needed the support. Going to see my father, who was now a hospice patient, was never easy. He was evil and scowling most of the time (which I can't blame him) and other times he was just plain mad at the entire world, loking like he could slap the horse shit outta ANYONE at any given time. He was far from pleasant to be around. Viola eventually “moved in” to the room my father had, so to speak. The hospital placed a cot in his room and there she slept. Every. Night. She also spent every day there. Though they had been broken up for at LEAST 7-8 years, she still loved him and I have always said this and I will say it again, Viola will surely be blessed for the kindness and love she showed my Dad. It was the end of December. I was planning to move to D.C. shortly and I hadn’t told anyone.

I think that in retrospect, my wanting to move was my way of dealing-by-not-dealing with the fact that my father was dying.

To be continued………