When I was about 11 years old, my stepdad's mother, Pearl, came to live with us after she was in a gruesome accident that instantly killed her boyfriend.  I had met when i was six and all I knew about her was that she had gone through two husbands and was originally from Perth, Austrailia (yes the same place Heath Ledger was from). 

I had met her second husband and I was deeply saddened when he passed.  They appropriately played "Send In The Clowns" at his funeral being that he was always the jokester.  I even ran across a photo of him wearing a t-shirt that said "Clean Air Smells Funny" (he was a smoker) at the age of 70.

Pearl was also a smoker.

I for some reason after all these years had a hard time letting her into my life.  I don't know if it was just a classic case of clash of culture (she is white and I am American Mexican) or residual baggage of feeling forced of having a close relationship with my stepfather.  I literally met him one day and THAT SAME DAY I moved in with him (My mother was already living with him) and that was that.  My opinion did not matter.  Even today....that relationship is strained even though I would do anything for him and vice versa.

It's been about two years that she has been in and out of the hospital more consistently.  Her lungs (one at a time) would collapse.  She once had to spend Christmas in the hospital.  So when she was taken in again by the ambulence last week, it didn't seem like a  big deal to me. It was just kinda like "Oh, she will be home by friday."  

Then the doctors decided that they wanted to  fix her lungs to where hopefully it would keep her lungs from collapsing as frequently.  I had an ugly feeling but I shook it off.  I didn't want to be pessimistic in front of my stepdad.  So they scheduled the surgery for this past Monday.  I had jury duty at two p.m. and she was supposed to be out by 3.  So by the time I had gotten out of jury duty I was sure she would be in recovery.  Things didn't go as smoothly as we thought. 

They didn't even get her out of surgery until almost six.  Apparently during the surgery her blood pressure was so low that they had to stop and not finish everything they had hope to accomplish.  Then as she was in recovery her OTHER lung collapsed.  She never recovered.  

I couldn't go to the hospital cause they would not have let my son in.  My mother was just saying that her blood pressure was so low that it wasn't sending any oxygen to her brain and if she survived, she would be brain dead.  They were going to take her off life support as soon as her other sons got there.  She passed away Tuesday night at 10:10 p.m.

Suddenly all of the petty tiffs we had were so trivial and stupid.  So what if she turned off the A/C when it's 100 degrees outside and we are melting indoors?! We have fans, we can eat ice cream.  So what if she NEVER cleaned out her hair from the shower drain and left me with a combination of wet hair and shampoo residue to clean up after?!  I would take it all back if I could.  

She was always so full of life.  She was 82 years old and she went out all the time with her friends.  She even came home drunk a couple of times.  I hope to be as vivacious when I am her age.

It's weird walking past her bedroom not seeing her laying in bed reading one of her Tom Clancy novels, and not seeing her unwashed coffee cups, or nearly choking on her cloud of aerosol hairspray everytime she got ready to go out.  I nearly broke down when I got in the shower and saw her five bottles of conditioner.  I was cleaning the living room when I found a label that had fallen from the oxygen mask she was wearing when they took her away.  


I will miss her