Dawn's Digression.

If you thought I was a bitch about smoking before, it's even worse now. And I didn't think I could be worse. I lost my grandfather 10 years ago to lung cancer. I lost a very close friend of the family (she was a grandmother to me) to lung cancer 10 years ago. Now I will lose another one. All three were smokers.
As I said, you thought I was a bitch about it before....
I was driving to work the other day, and I saw a woman in the lane next to me smoking. Do you want to know what I thought? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. I thought nothing but "You are going to die." How awful is that? That is the first thing I think when I see people smoking now. I'm sure it's not fair. But neither is life. And we can't control our emotions. If we could life would be a lot more simple, wouldn't it?
I went to visit Granny on Saturday. Friday on the way home from work, Mom called me to tell me that some friends of Granny's had been with her that day and could not get her to wake up. No matter what they did, she just wouldn't wake up, so they were taking her to the hospital. I did a bad thing. I came home instead of going directly to the hospital. It got to be 3 hours later, and I decided that was it....I was driving out to the hospital to check on things myself. I got 45 minutes in to my drive before I called Dad. He said she was better and being moved to her own room. I have no idea what happened, but Friday night Granny was herself as she hadn't been in a few years. She was able to lift her left arm and everything. She hasn't done that in forever. I went ahead and went back home to sleep in my own bed instead of at my parents. I HATE their guest bed. It's awful. A~, when I went to visit her on Saturday, she was a million times better than she was on Monday. I was able to talk with her. I had to leave there about 4pm, and I didn't want to leave. I was having a nice visit....and I just don't know how many nice visits I have left. But it was Shelley's birthday, and I knew Granny was okay for a least a little bit, so I left.

I am so touched by my friends' recollection of my grandmother. When I was a kid, as I've mentioned, I had tons of parties at her house and she loved the company. And my friends loved her. My two best friends from Junior High remember her best...and I have been truly touched by their genuine concern.

You know, I promised myself I wouldn't make the mistake of saying "I should have". And I did. I've said to myself repeatedly that I need to get out there and visit Granny. You've read it here. But I didn't. And you know what? I may be too late to re-establish the closeness we had. Am I? I don't know. But I did exactly what I knew I didn't want to do. It's so easy to say that if I could go back, I'd do things differently... And I hate that now I can't be there as much as I'd like. I know that I don't live all that far...and I know I'm lucky that I live close enough that I can visit... But. I am just so darn angry that I don't live closer to everyone. I wish I could just 'stop by' after work. I can't. I wish I could stop by a couple of times over the weekend. I can't. Or is that I won't? And that hurts, too. I feel incredibly selfish for hating the drive and not going out there three times a week. I should, shouldn't I? But I don't. Even as I sit here writing about it and feeling guilty, I have no intentions of going out there more than this coming weekend. We'll visit her a couple of times...but not like I should. I feel like such an awful person.