Flossie passes on

Grace and greetings.

Earlier this week I received a call from my mother stating that my grandmother was probably on her last days now. I remember when my mother said that when we gathered for my grandmother's 90th birthday, twelve years ago. But I figured this time was the real time.

My younger brother called me the next day, stating that he happened to be in Southern California, (travels back and forth from his home in Portland, OR. to Irvine, CA for work), he had canceled his business meetings and drove up to Pasadena to see Grandma. She was sleeping, shallow breath, low blood pressure, and non responsive to his holding her hand for the time he was there. He just happened to be with our Grandfather when he died in 1993. Fortunately, for my Grandmother, she was without pain, unlike my grandfather who died as a result of the worst of melanoma cancer.

Since my Grandfather died, my mother would fly from Anchorage to LA about every three months, and her brother would fly from New Jersey during the the other months, so that grandma had somebody visiting her every six weeks or so. My uncle was the last to see grandma, flew out this week, two weeks before he was to fly out anyway, and was able to say good-bye. Nothing much else to do but wait.

My mother called me at 7:20 this morning to let me know that she had died during the early morning, about 1:20 PDT. What surprised my mother is that the Chaplin was with my grandmother at the time of her death. My grandmother will be cremated and there will be a very small Memorial sometime in August or September, when both my mother and her brother can get there.

My Grandmother was always trying to be somebody that she wasn't, mostly trying to be the "perfect pastor's wife" throughout her life and marriage to my grandfather. I am guessing the she resented having to be the pastor's wife, hopefully it was not all resentment. I am sure there were times she wanted to leave, in fact at one point left with my 2 year old mother back to Prince Edward Island for a year or so before returning.

My grandmother rarely, if every, talked about her past, about her family and parents. We can guess at some parts, but that is mostly what they are, guesses. During the last several years of her life, she would talk about her father or mother, and then in the next breath stated that she needed to go back to work, so we never really knew which was real and what was not. This I can say, regardless of how my grandparents marriage might have been, rocky or otherwise, after my grandfather died, she grieved for him until her own death this morning.

I believe my mother summed it up best this morning on the phone, "Another era is over. Grandma had lived a long life, do not know how good it was, for she died with her secrets." Florence "Flossie" MacInnes would have been 102 years old come September.

Peace and blessings to all.

Ian