February Family Flashbacks

I decided it would be fun for February to remind myself and share with others some family memories. It is the month of love and we must all have at least one fond family fun fact, or flashback. There's a lot of alliteration going on there!

My "Fond Family Flashback" this week is dedicated to Peter's Nan, Emily Annie Elizabeth Cheeseman. She was born May 5, 1888. She was a lot of fun and gave rise to several funny memories and one very sweet treasured moment.

From left to right: Granny, me, Nan Cheeseman, Auntie Lily

My bridal shower January 1972

Nan bought me an ironing board and a wooden rolling pin for our wedding. Both I still have and treasure. Every time I put up the ironing board and it squeaks it's little squeak I am reminded of her. Not because she squeaked, but because she gave me two very necessary gifts that are still in use today...39 years and counting.

 If she spilled salt she would throw a bit over her shoulder.  To this day if I spill salt I toss it over both shoulders as I'm never sure which one is correct. She said if a bird pooped on you it was good luck. Also if she ever dropped a knife on the floor she would leave it on the floor and wait until someone came home.

Nan died in February 1980.  I wrote the following a few days later.

Emily Annie Elizabeth was my husband’s grandmother, affectionately known as Nan.  She was born in 1888 and was one of sixteen children.  Her mother died when Nan was young and this left Nan to help raise her brothers and sisters.  Nan had never had an easy life but she was happy and always smiling and laughing.  Nan always had good health and had never had to go to a doctor or a hospital.  When she was a girl, she was knocked down by a horse-drawn milk cart and sustained several facial injuries, all of which her father dealt with.  Hospitals in those days were only for the dying.  Nan had often told the story and I had always admired the courage it must have taken to have withstood the pain of her teeth knocked out and her nose smashed.

Last year I took Nan to the doctor for the first time.  She had a sore toe that just wouldn’t get better.  After a while she was diagnosed as Senile Diabetic, after starting to treat that the toe started getting better.  Nan was very active.  She was always cooking and doing things around the house.  She used to make cakes for the Old Age Pensioners Club and people around her because as she would put it, “Some of them are getting too old to cook.”  Nan was 91!

Very suddenly Nan’s toe started to get worse and the doctor wanted her to go into the hospital.  We did our best to laugh and joke with her and keep her mind off the things happening to her.  She stayed in the hospital six days and then they released her.  Because she was unable to walk and needed constant supervision, Nan came to live with us.  During this time a district nurse came in every day to wash and redress Nan’s foot, and the doctor was only a phone call away.  For a few days all went well and then the infection started to spread and the pain got worse.

Saturday morning before Christmas Nan was awake most of the night with pain and had become a bit disorientated and confused.  Sometime before dawn she looked up and said, “Don’t cry Joe, don’t cry.”  Joe was her husband who had died forty years before.  At that moment I felt an emptiness I have never experienced before as I thought of what it must be like to be separated for forty years from the man you loved.  A few hours later my husband gave a blessing to his grandmother and as we felt that she was slipping away we decided it was best if we rang her daughter, my mother-in-law.  When my mother-in-law walked in Nan looked up and said goodbye.  Tears sprang to both of our eyes.  Shortly thereafter the nurse came to freshen her up and when she had left we went to sit with Nan.  I’ve never doubted but I knew then the power the Priesthood had.  Nan was sitting up in bed looking as if she hadn’t a care in the world

We had promised to bring Nan downstairs on Christmas if she felt up to it, but as Christmas morning came she again didn’t appear well.  We left her in bed for the morning not knowing what she wanted.  She seemed so sad.  Half way through Christmas dinner I went to check on her.  She was laying there with tears in her eyes.  I said in the brightest voice I could raise, “Are you ready?  Peter’s coming to carry you downstairs.”  An instant smile came to her face.  She thought we had forgotten her, we thought she didn’t feel well enough. That was the best Christmas I can remember, all of the family, four generations sharing Christmas around the tree.  We offered to carry her downstairs the next day as well, but she said no, she’d stay in bed.

Shortly after the New Year Nan went back into the hospital to have part of her leg amputated.  I broke the news to her about what they wanted to do.  She smiled and accepted it.  We felt the shock would be too much for her but within a few hours of the operation she was sitting up talking to us.  The incredible pain she had suffered was gone.  She continued to improve and we began to make plans for when she came out of the hospital.  It was decided it was best for her to come live with us, as our house could be more easily adapted for someone in a wheelchair.  Nan had a terrific sense of humor and would laughingly tell us she would chase us in her wheelchair.  The hospital even gave her one to practice with and she went up and down the hospital ward learning how to work it.

On Monday about three weeks after the operation, she didn’t appear well and had lost her usual sparkle.  On the Wednesday we learnt the infection had started again and that they wanted to operate taking the rest of her leg.  Thursday night they said she was dying and there wasn’t anything they could do.  They offered to let my mother-in-law and myself stay as long as we wanted.  We sat holding Nan’s hand and listening to the noises of a large twenty bed ward settling down for the night.  We were each lost in our own thoughts.  Mine turned from memories shared with Nan to the purpose of life, and on to prayer.  Many thoughts went through my mind as I searched for reassurance.  At about 11:30p.m. I became aware that Grandad Cheeseman, Joe as Nan called him was there waiting and I felt I could hear him saying, “Emie, Emie come home.”  It was then I knew I mustn’t grieve.

The next afternoon at the hospital Nan’s other granddaughter-in-law, Pat and myself sat talking about life in general, and about what the church meant to us.  We sat and watched Nan fighting and hanging onto life.  Shortly after 3:30p.m we decided to give her a drink and moisten her lips.  As we laid her back down on the pillows I said, “Oh Nan give in and go home.”  And she did!  It was so simple, so very beautiful.  We just looked at each other not knowing for sure.  We felt for a pulse and I went to get a nurse.  She confirmed Nan was dead and asked if we’d wait outside.  Pat and I both tried to be very brave but the beauty of it was so great that one look at each other and the tears fell.  The nurses rallied around offering us cups of tea.  I felt sorry for the nurses because I knew they felt sorry for us and were feeling an emptiness for us that we just didn’t have.  The nurse came back and gave me Nan’s wedding ring and asked if we’d like to phone my mother-in-law.  Pat and I went back for a last goodbye.  No more than five or ten minutes had lapsed since she had died, but yet her body had changed.  Her spirt had left. It was then that I knew without any shadow of doubt, God’s eternal plan and the beauty of life and death.

As Pat and I left the hospital knowing that everyone was watching our tears flow and wanting to comfort us, all we could say was, “It was so simple and so beautiful, and now she is home.”