My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago. She had had an ongoing battle with Parkinson's Disease for a large portion of her life. For the last few years she slowly wasted away in a hospital bed. She lost her mobility, her ability to eat, and finally her speech. In the last week of her life she stayed a sleep most of the time. On Sunday, March 27, 2011 she was no longer suffering.
My grandmother was an amazing woman. She always treated me like an adult even when I was just a child. She would always let me stay at her house on weekends instead of going to my older brother's baseball games. I loved her house and I loved her. When I was very little she would let me go across the street, a privilege not many children had, to go and get pizza for lunch. Halloween is one of my favorite holidays and she never once made that holiday anything but amazing. Christmas Eve was always at her house and she made her annual Christmas Cider, a recipe that no one has ever been able to duplicate. We would always open presents there and eat to our stomachs ached. She was District Clerk for a long time and everyone in town knew her. She was loved by many people.
As her sickness started to worsen, my grandmother was no longer able to live in her house alone. She had to moved into Assisted Living. Soon it was very easy to see that she was getting worse. Her appearance began to change and not for the better either. I would actually make excuses not to go see her because the woman in that bed was not my grandmother. I had convinced myself that she had died and that the woman in the bed was nothing more than a husk, a shell. As time passed I felt guilty for doing this but I did not change. Even when the hospice people told us that "this is it" or "she won't last the week". But my grandmother was a stubborn woman and she would not leave this earth until she was ready. In the last month I started seeing her again and as much as I was able to. She could hardly speak at this point. I would get down on my knees, so that I was eye-level with her, and I would talk to her. Her eyes would lock on mine and I knew that she was hanging on every word. I wanted to get the book that I had written last year and read it to her but I didn't get the chance to. I said goodbye to her the Thursday before her death. I kissed her head and did my best not to cry, which was all but impossible.
At her funeral I had an idea. As some of you know the album is going to be short a song and I thought that maybe I could write a song in honor of my grandmother. I had several conflicting thoughts later. Would any of my family want this? Would it be in bad taste? My grandmother never got the chance to know of Casanova Cupcake, as much as my family is right now, but I know she would have supported me in it no matter what. Or at least in the outfits. So yesterday I finally finished writing the lyrics to our next song. We'll start recording ASAP. I hope when it comes out you'll all enjoy it.
Also thank you to all the amazing people that wished me the best and said prayers for my family. We owe all of you so much.
Asylum Letters will continue some time next week.
With much love,
J.S.
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