My grandma was my everything - best friend, partner, parent, soul mate . . . everything. She was as healthy as any 80 year old really comes until her May diagnosis of cardiac amyloidosis. She denied possible treatments because of potential impact on my son with whom we learned I was pregnant May 2. She was determined as hell to stay around to meet him. The doctors varied in estimated time form 6 months to 18 months, but she deterioriated in a blink of an eye and was gone 8 weeks later. She went home too because she was simply tired of hospitals. 

My mother and brother lived only about a half hour away but refused to help during nights other than Friday and Saturday because (1) my mother felt she had to get full nights of sleep to adequately perform her job as a counselor and (2) my brother wasn't comfortable taking care of my gramma as he is a male and she is a female. This was despite the fact that I began having pregnancy concerns weeks before I lost the baby with unexplained spotting and cramping.

To deal with not helping more, they insisted that I put her in home, but that was simply not an option. While I was able to keep her from getting any bed sores or any accidents, just 5 days at the hospice home for respit relief, she had a serious fall as well as bed sores. I knew I was taking on a lot, but there was absolutely no other option in my heart and I know Gramma would have done even more for me. I still hold a lot of guilt for not being in her room with her more to spend more quality time with her, but the smells and exhaustion impacted me beyond belief particularly since I had 24/7 nausea until 14 weeks. So, about every hour or two, I'd take care of her medical needs, food needs, spend a little time with her, and then run to my bed to try to get to sleep. The #1 way to get her to happily understand is by telling her that me and baby HAD to sleep. Once I would tell her that, even in her most delusioned states where she was begging me to take her outside because the house was burning down, or she had to go to school, or the horses that we don't have needed tended to, and so on, she'd smile and say "ok." Even her last words to me were not to move her because of the baby about an hour before I went into labor. 

There has been no reason given as to why I went into preterm labor. No cervical issues, no infection, my son was perfectly healthy and strong, no placental problems - nothing. The physicians say it wasn't due to hospice caretaking or the stress, but I have my extreme doubts. 

All of this was all compounded also by the exhaustion and resulting inability to work which practically killed my new business and caused severe financial hardship (I'm a self-employed attorney) and toward the very end about a 2-3 weeks before my gramma died, my mother also learned that she had a brain tumor.

Considering - I believe I'm doing pretty well by only the grace of God. The last 6 months have been so unreal that I have felt from the moment I learned Gramma passed while I was in the hospital holding my dead son that God has to have a reason and I went on a search for it. I also knew that I needed to get back on my feet asap before I was homeless from not being able to work. So, I immediately began going to bi-weekly hospice bereavement support groups as well as monthly perinatal loss groups. I read everything I could on grief. One book has helped me 100x over - "Transcending Loss" by a Dr. Brush. It has expressly lead me to finding my purpose through my grief to honor and remember Gramma and my son. And, while reading it, I felt Gramma's spiritual presence which let me know she was saying, "There you go! You're getting it!" I also started blogging to get the incessant thoughts out of my head and so that I wouldn't feel like I might forget things about them. It has been very healing. (http://kindredelephants.tumblr.com) 

I've also started seeing a grief psychotherapist. Although I feel like I've been doing better, I was concerned that I often think of wanting to be with them NOW with abstract suicidal thoughts. I'm a logical person and work on a calculated risk M.O. and a person of faith, so, I don't think I would ever go through with anything like that since it would perhaps defeat my purpose - to be with them in Heaven and I believe would dishonor their memory that I need to live to share. Plus, my 3 dogs need me here because no one will love them like me. But, I have the thoughts often enough that I became concerned and reached out to a therapist. I also had concern because of the complexities and traumas of both losses and the experiences individually compounded by the simultaneous loss. I also feared the holidays and my due date all falling within 4-6 month grieving period which they say is the hardest period. I've only been to two sessions thus far and haven't found relief from them, but I took it upon myself reach out before it may have become too late.

Most of all though, I have relied on God to show me the way and protect me from even myself. I went to church one day after everything and the pastor preached about how if there is no humanly answer for something, THAT is when you know God is working a miracle - even if it is ugly. Through attaching more to my faith. I was faithful before but this has brought it all to a newfound level of trust and belief and understanding of God. I can feel and hear God like never before. I have been drawn closer to understanding His word and have felt myself being guided through it. He has answered my questions of their afterlives that haunted me for weeks. Through His forgiveness, I have better forgiven myself for caretaker guilt. Through faith, I keep telling myself that I'll be with them again in a blink of an eye of which I believe life on Earth is when compared to infinitie life.

Plus, through it all, God has shown me for the first time ever really clarity of my entire life struggles and circumstances in preparation for surviving through this and what to do with it. I feel like I now have 20/20 vision of everthing in my life and can see the choregraphy of it all leading up to now. I have felt the Holy Spirit moving me and guiding me through music, books, intuition, memories, feelings, and more. As just one example, I realized truly for the first time how important it was to me to become a mother and extend my Gramma's lessons and love - before I was indifferent as to whether I had children or not - my son was a mistake....a beautiful, missed, grieved mistake -- but he was not a planned pregnancy by any stretch of the imagination. I have found writing for the first time. My life has been completely reprioritized and refocused through motherhood, death, and grief. Utlimately, I believe God put me through this surreal experience to loudly get my attention, to understand love at its deepest levels (through grief), to come closer to Him, and to share His love through my story. I understand His purpose for my life for the first time. 

Nevertheless, I won't pretend like I'm yet okay. I am a rollercoaster of feelings at any given moment. One day I feel blessed in this experience, the next I'm angry, the next I'm lonely, the next I'm weeping, the next I'm feeling almost normal. One moment I feel like I failed Gramma in her care a million ways, the next moment I feel blessed to care for her during those times and happy I was here to protect her because no one would have cared for her better. One day I can go through the day without focusing on them and the next 7 days I'm a catatonic or weeping mess. I don't remember most days of the last 6 months. I forget things all the time and my long time boyfriend follows me around the house making sure I turn stoves off and what not. I got into a fender bender last week because I completely blacked out for a few seconds.  

But I'm surviving. I can smile occasionally. I can laugh every now and again. I can feel music more and more. I feel some days like I'm poking out of the haze of grief. I can hold normal conversations. I can say I've lost my son and Gramma sometimes without melting down. I can some days see the light at the end of the tunnel. Although these days are still sparce, they are there. The non-linear process of grief becomes discouraging at times, but I'm coping and in a sense, I'm healing. And, I know that is what Gramma would want so I keep trying to make her smile with pride.