November 11, 2025 • 38 mins
Grammy left this world with her head on my chest on November 7, 2025 at 5:36 AM. Thank you for loving her.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Let you know, Ala Byers, I wanted to hop on
and just do an episode for Grammy because Grammy loved
this podcast. She was so proud of what I've built here,
this community. All of your well wishes were read to her,
and it just blew her away that so many people
from all over the world took a moment to think
(00:22):
about her pray for her. And I've shared Grammy with
you guys probably since the first week of this podcast,
and it's been a minute, so a lot of you
felt like you knew her, and that's just how Grammy was.
You met her once in person, and you felt like
you've known her forever, and I guess even from Afar
it was the same, because she was definitely one of
a kind. The last update I posted to YouTube was
(00:45):
somewhat hopeful, but before we get there, we'll talk about
what happened that led us to Grammy leaving this world
at five point thirty six am on Friday with her
head on my heart. She had been in the hospital
a few weeks ago for seediff, which is.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hard for elderly.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It's something that's common, but in true Grammy fashion, she
beat it and we decided to send her to a
ten day inpatient rehab to try to get some strength back,
do some occupational therapy so that she would feel more
comfortable doing certain things for herself safely.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And she really.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Enjoyed her time over there at Encompass Health. It's a
beautiful facility. They took amazing care of her.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
She loved the food.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Her appetite had been really diminishing in the last few weeks,
and then she got her appetite back and every meal
she would rave about and she was doing great, y'all.
I had to go Halloween to do two hours with
her so that they could show me how I could
help her. Once she came back home, she was walking
so fast, she had energy. Really, it was the best
(01:48):
we had seen her in a year, and so there
was a lot of hope that this was the turning
point for her, that she would get better and we
would be able to enjoy the holidays and maybe we're
going to get a break. So she came home last
Sunday a week this past Sunday, she had on her
little graduation T shirt from the rehab place, and I'd
(02:09):
never seen Grammy and a T shirt, by the way,
so it was really weird. For me, but she was
proud of it because she worked very hard to get
that strength back and to get some independence, and she
was very proud of herself. And the next morning, since
her appetite had improved, she wanted a gravy biscuit, so
got that ready for her and I was walking her
to the kitchen table and she stopped just in her tracks,
(02:29):
and that was happening back when her aphib was acting up.
She would get dizzy sometimes, so I asked her, are
you dizzy? And she just didn't talk for a second,
and then she tried to take a step and started
going to the right. And I'm always two steps behind
her because I'm nervous and I just don't want a
fall to be anything.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
That would set us back in a big way.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So I was able to grab her easier down to
the ground, and looking back, it was very clear to
me that her femur was broken, but at the time,
I think my Runnalim was just take care of her.
I pulled her and got her on the couch. My son,
who's a firefighter EMT, came in. I'd already called nine
to one one, took a look at her and he said, yeah,
I'm glad you called something's going on with this leg
(03:12):
big time. So they confirmed she had broken her femur,
which was a devastating diagnosis for us because of how
good she was walking and how good she was doing,
and we knew this was going to be a huge setback.
So the next day, on Tuesday, they put a rod in.
The surgery went as well as it could perfect really,
given the fact that she was ninety one and her
(03:34):
pain level was zero, which is amazing. She had had
some chronic pain in her leg that now we think
was attributed to this fracture. They didn't know if maybe
chronic use of steroids over the years for her arthritis
was the culprit. It can weaken your bones and she
had osteoarthritis kind of a perfect storm, or did she
(03:54):
have a fracture that was there that over time kind
of like a windshield when it cracks, it's small at first,
but over time it gets bigger. She had no postop pain,
but we were dealing with some really bad nausea and
vomiting the first two days after surgery that we attributed
to anesthesia. No food, still putting her on narcotics because
(04:15):
we didn't want to have to catch up with bad.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Pain if it came along.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And so finally by Thursday evening, she was just nauseous
but not getting sick. So I ran to the store
and I thought, what would be bland that I could
give her that would get some food on her stomach
but not be harsh on her stomach. So I got
baby food. I got peaches because she loves peaches. And
every thirty minutes Thursday night, I was giving her a
(04:40):
spoonful of peaches and a little bit to drink, just
to sort of ease your stomach back into having food,
so that maybe she would feel better and be able
to get up for therapy and just try to give
her some fuel. Friday morning, the doctor was in taking
a look at her, and we realized her hemoglobein was
really really low, and so they ordered some blood and
(05:02):
they were giving her a transfusion, and her blood pressure
just bottomed out, which is kind of odd happening during
the transfusion. She had never had a reaction to that,
but the doctor was in there for it, and so
they opened up the flow on the blood and the
fluids and put.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Her head down and her blood pressure came up.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And they were asking her where she was, Prisma, why
are you here?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, I broke my.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Leg, so we were like, okay, she's with it, and
then she got much better, so we thought maybe it
was a fluke.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But the doctor said, let me.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Just do a set of her belly just to make
sure we're not bleeding out anywhere. Because during the drop,
the orthopedic surgeon came in and unwrapped her leg and said,
her leg looks great, actually better than I thought.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
This is not the problem. The doctor decided to move
her to the step.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Down ICU unit so that they could monitor her vitals
for twenty four hours to make sure we weren't dipping again.
By the time we got her settled in there, she
was back to her chatty self, normal Grammy. Grammy loved
to talk y'all. Some times I would have to tell her,
let me talk to the doctor because Grammy would give
a whole life history to where the doctors obviously wanted
to know things that were relevant in the moment. And
(06:09):
these two surgeons came in and said, we did the
CT and she essentially had some dead gut. That was
a devastating diagnosis, and they told us there were two options.
They could go in and it would be a full
length incision down the length of her belly.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
They would take out the dead gut. They would leave that.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Incision open for an undetermined amount of time and maybe
have to go back in and take out more deck gut,
and he told of all the other things they would
have to do in order to try and remedy this,
and my mom and I looked at each other and
we didn't have to say a word because Grammy's daughter,
mayunt Angie, who you guys know I lost almost four
(06:52):
years ago, had the same thing, and she was fifty
four and she never got better.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
She was constantly septic.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
They would get her down to a safer level, sender home,
and then she'd.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Be right back in the hospital.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And Gramy lost her youngest daughter at fifty four on
Mother's Day coming up four years. So we never wanted
that for Grammy, and I don't think Gramy really comprehended
what the doctor was saying. Her hearing has gone a
bit in the last six months, and she said, well,
I'll think about it and tell you tomorrow. But the
doctors told us the other option is that we would
(07:25):
keep her comfortable. It would be a relatively quick passing,
and so that was the biggest gut punch to us.
Later on, I posted on my socials about Grammy because
we needed prayer as it was devastating. I came home
just felt like I couldn't breathe could feel my heart breaking,
and my kids went up to see her. And even
though I don't think her brain knew she was dying,
(07:47):
her soul did because she was giving my kids at
vice for their futures. But in the meantime, the last
YouTube update I posted, her numbers were moving back in
the right direction where she didn't look septic and her
hemoglobin was coming up to normal levels, and that gave
us a lot of hope that maybe this diagnosis was wrong,
(08:09):
because the doctor did say I could go in there
find you have no dead gut, and I would close
you back up and you would have an incision. So
we were hoping that was the case because her numbers
were just improving by the hour, and the medical staff
was really shocked at how these numbers very quickly went
back to normal, so we had hope, Okay, we're just
(08:31):
going to be dealing with this leg So my mom
and I were there standing by her bed after everybody
had left. I was coming up to relieve my mom
to take the night shift. I wanted to stay up
and watch her blood pressure all night, make sure we
were good. And Gramy looked at us and she said,
y'all are sparkling, And so me and Mom immediately looked
down on our clothes to see if we have glitter
(08:51):
on us or something. Did we hug somebody to have glitter?
We just didn't know, but we had nothing on us.
And it wasn't until after she passed that we my
aunt Angie and my pop, her husband standing right there
with us. We were guarding her in life, and they
were there to take her home. That's something that's been
very comforting to me in the days since she passed.
(09:13):
But that night, Grammy was back to normal. She loved
to make the nurses laugh.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
She loved to make it fun for them. She knew.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
She would always say, I bet they get some patients
that aren't easy to work with, and I'm not going
to be one of those. So even when she wasn't
feeling good, she would always try to make it pleasant
for the nurses that were in her room. Her hands
and her feet were just so cold that night, and
they were trying to get blood out of her finger
at that point to measure these levels that we were monitoring,
(09:42):
and it took a while. So twenty minutes Grammy had
them in stitches and me and Grammy go back and
forth and make people laugh.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
That's just how we roll.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
After they left the room, this was about five twenty
in the morning on Friday, Grammy said, why don't we
get a little sleep. I want to wake up and
call Sarah, which is my daughter, at seven, to wake
her up for school because one time, y'all, one time
this year, we both slept through our alarms and she
was fifteen minutes late. In every day since then, Grammy
(10:11):
called the both of us. Are you awake? Are you up?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Are you getting ready?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And I said okay, and she said I love you.
I said I love you too, Grammy. And as soon
as I said I love you too, Grammy, I heard
her trying to cough and I could hear something in
her throat and I said, hey, Grammy, just give it
a good cough.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And then that sound.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Got louder and louder, and I knew something was happening.
And so it was dark in there because I just
turned the white off. I just saw something coming out
of her nose and her mouth, and so I immediately
hit the nurse button. I hit the light, and I
grabbed a washcloth that was right beside her bed and
wiped her face and she locked eyes with me. I
(10:53):
pulled her up with both hands to an upright position
to where we were face to face to make sure
nothing was aspirated until the nurse got in there. It
was ten seconds, but it felt like a year, and
she locked eyes with me, and I have to say, y'all,
it's like she stared through my soul. It was not
(11:13):
a panic look. It was a very peaceful, serene look.
And the weight of her body just came forward. And
I glanced up at her heart monitor and it went
from eighty to zero. And the minute that her forehead
literally landed on top of my heart, her heart stopped.
And what I felt after that is something I will
(11:34):
remember until I take my last breath on this earth.
I felt like her soul passed right through me, and
it was this intense feeling of comfort and warmth, almost
like an internal hug, and it stayed with me for
a while. So they bring in the critical care team
and her nurses are very upset as they're trying to
(11:55):
work on her, and they start CPR and I saw
them doing it and it was so so violent and
it's the way you do it. But here's my little
grandma ninety one, tiny little thing. I just yelled, stop,
she's gone, let her go. And they were looking at
me and still going and they said they got a
little pulse back. I looked at it was about forty
(12:17):
six at that point. They sent me out into the hallway.
So I called my mom and I said, Mom, she's gone.
Can we stop CPR. They're doing CPR. She said stop.
So I ran in the room and I said stop.
They were about to shock her. I said, this is
how she wanted to go. I remember one time laying
in the bed with her, and she asked me, are
(12:37):
you afraid of dying? And I said, no, not at all.
It's part of life. It's the only guarantee besides the
day we're born. And I said, are you and she
said no. I just don't want to suffer. I don't
want to lay there and suffer. And so from the
time I told her I love you too, Grammy to
the time her head hit my chest. I would estimate
(12:59):
maybe ten seconds, and she really didn't know what hit her.
The nurses later confirmed that that the minute she locked
eyes with me and that heart stopped, it was over
and she didn't suffer. So it was the easiest thing
for me to do to tell them to stop. I said,
I'm her power of attorney. No resuscitation. I knew she
had aspirated stuff. It was just going to be inevitable,
(13:22):
and she was gone. So they cleaned her up and
I went in there and I sat down by her
and grabbed her hand, and it was warm that night.
It was so cold, but that little hand with her
arthritis and her huge knuckles, put her hand in mine
and it was warm. And I looked at her face,
and she had a little smile on her face, y'all,
And she had a little tear just hanging in the
(13:43):
very corner of her eye, and I thought, that tear
is for leaving us, but that smile is because she
saw her daughter. And not too long ago we were
talking about dying and what we hoped to see when
we cross, and I said, Okay, besides, that's Angie, who's
the one person you're looking forward to seeing and she said, Angie.
(14:06):
She said, I love your pop, my parents, my grandmother
who she loved very dearly, but she said my baby.
So I felt this sense of comfort looking at this
little smile on her face and this.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Little tear that I wiped away that I think was.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
For us, And I thought the minute her head hit
my chest, she saw her daughter, and I talked to
her and I thanked her for who she was to
me in my life, which was a very central figure
from the day I was born. She's not only been
a grandmother, but in the year that she lived with
(14:41):
me and I took care of her, our relationship grew
to something past the grandmother granddaughter relationship.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It matured it was more of.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
A woman to woman with still that grandmother a granddaughter relationship.
But we had a lot of talks over this year
about life, her giving me advice that at the time
I thought was just random ramblings from her, but really
were things she wanted me to know, the things she
didn't get to do, the way she didn't handle situations.
(15:14):
It was things I think in retrospect of her own life,
she would hope sharing a little wisdom with me might
save me from taking a detour of how I should
do things or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I'm just still sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thinking back to all these conversations we had in the
lessons that were embedded in those that didn't seem significant
at the time, but do now. When I talk about
her love in this podcast, y'all, she loved this podcast.
I mean, fifteen minutes before she died, she was so
proud to tell everybody what I did, and she was
trying to get me new listeners with the Lab girls.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Do you like true crime? Yeah, she has a podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I cannot tell you how many times she has told
people what I do and said go subscribe. And some
of you may be listening to this because of her.
I left the hospital feeling really weird, packing up the room,
getting my stuff, getting her stuff that we had brought
for her, and it was just a shock. I had
(16:11):
not comprehended what had just happened, although in the moment
I was stronger than I ever thought I could be.
And I went to my mom's and my dads who
lived two doors up for me, and we had a moment.
And all of our family lives on the same street,
and so we went and told my brother and his
wife and then we came home and told the kids,
(16:34):
and so it's just been a very devastating time for us.
My kids lived a year of their life in the
same house with their ninety one year old grandmother and
had fun with her. They have videos I haven't even
seen where they would play around with her and get
her laughing. And you know, even if it was just
popping in to give her a kiss, or hopping in
(16:54):
the bed with her and watching funny videos or tiktoks
you love funny videos, y'all, her talking to them about
their futures. It's added so much to their life for
the rest of their life to have this intimate time
with her here in our home that I'm so grateful for,
and it makes that loss even harder.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But that's the price of love. The price of.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Loving someone so much is that when they go, the
devastation is amplified and it reaches the very back corners
of your heart and your soul. And for me, I've
been so hardwired to think of her first all day
every day. How is her sugar? Do you need to
get up? Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Or just
(17:41):
randomly hoping in bed with her with my laptop to
do my work or just to lay and watch TV,
which that woman watched News Nation from the time she
got up in the morning until she fell asleep at night.
She loved keeping up with the news and had gotten
into true crime since she had been with me, and
sometimes the most profound moments we had, I think we're
(18:04):
just laying in silence, and I'd be in my own world,
She'd be in her own world.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But we were together.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
After Hurricane Helene hit, she stayed with me for two
months because she didn't have power at her house, and
she really got used to being here, the noise, the
people in and out, the family popping in because we
all live on the same street, so it was really
easy to just pop over and say hi. And my
kids and their friends that she loved like her own grandkids,
(18:32):
some of which she saw grow up, the pets that
she grew to love. It was a full house, but
it was full of love. And while her goal that
she spoke out loud was to go back home and
be independent, in the last few weeks she talked about
selling her house and how it would be so lonely
(18:52):
to go back there, and it's just quiet to where
in my house. There's always a phone ringing, there's always
a pet coming up to see her, somebody in her
room hanging out with her. And I think she realized
that the home that she lived in was just a
structure and it was really the people in it that
made it what it was. And after my aunt died,
(19:14):
she really lost that emotional connection to her house that
she had lived in since nineteen sixty because she would
look for my aunt every day at five when she
would get off work, and she would stop by because
it was on our way home, and they would have dinner,
and we a lot of times we would all go
over there and sit and have dinner and just catch
up about our day. And when she lived on her own,
(19:34):
her house was less than five minutes away, so it
was multiple times a week we would all kind of
just hang out over there and just sit around the
table and laugh and eat and give her some company.
But when she came to live with me, there were
two things that I wanted for her. Number One, I
wanted this to feel like her home. So I fixed
(19:55):
up the bedroom to a Grammy bedroom. And just last week,
Grammy was talking about going back to rehab and she said, well,
when I go home, I'm gonna do this and this
and this, And my mom said, a mom, you're not
gonna be able to go home immediately, And Grahmy said, no,
home at Gigi's. And that means so much to me
now because in the end, this was her home. The
(20:18):
other thing that I wanted to do was to make
sure she never lost her dignity in me having to
care for her, because that was something that was very
important to her. She was the kind of woman that
always had to be dressed nicely. Even on her worst
days going to the doctor, she would get up and
it would take three four hours for her to get
a shower and to get ready to go, and it
(20:39):
would wear her out. But she had to present herself
as very well put together and just always a lady.
And it's interesting because the night she passed, we were
talking and like I say, she was normal. She was
as normal as she could have been given the day
she had, and in the night she died, she thanked
me for allowing her to keep her dignity in the
(21:00):
things I would have to do to take care.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Of her sometimes when she was sick.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So I always made sure in the times that we
were doing things that very well could have made her
lose her dignity. We laughed and deflected that feeling into
something fun. So to hear those two things from her
in the last week of her life meant so much
to me, because that's all I wanted. She maybe ninety one,
(21:25):
she may need help, but in her heart and her mind,
which was intact until she took her last breath, she
kept that dignity and that's what I wanted for her.
And I've done a lot of inventory since Friday morning
about who she was to me from the time I
was little, and she was just this light in my life.
(21:47):
Grandparents are so special, and if you had good ones,
you know what I'm talking about. Being in her presence
was comforting in itself. It didn't matter what kind of
day I had. If I walked into her house when
she was living at home, I immediately felt like whatever
was bothering me was left at the door.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
She was just a happy place for me.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Every milestone in my life she celebrated with me pure joy.
Her family meant everything to her, and we had five
generations on one street till she died, and she was
so proud of that. But her family was her rock,
and she was the backbone of this family. I think
that is why she fought so hard all year, because
(22:30):
she would say, I have to live, I have to
keep you guys straight, and that was just her. But
I was looking at these old pictures of her. I'm
going through and I'm doing the slide show for her viewing,
which we haven't been able to schedule yet. We're trying
to get insurance to pay out, and that's a pain.
But looking at these pictures of her before she was Grammy,
she was Sarah Francis, this young woman full of hope
(22:51):
and dreams and vibrant and gorgeous. And I thought to myself,
how sad I didn't get to know that version of her,
because I think we would have been best friends in
that time too. One story that really stands out to me,
that's a big clue of who she was before she
was a wife and a mother and a grandmother is
as a girl, they lived right beside this big field
(23:13):
and there was a bull in the field and Grammy
said she would get her red dress on and she
would go open the gate and stand right by it.
And she said, I would sway left and right move
my dress and when the bull would come, she would
get out of the gate. It was always such a
funny story that she told. But just this little daredevil
that had no fear, that really was who she ended
(23:34):
up being later in life. I just love that story.
She's an old Southern woman raised in the South, but
she was hip, y'all. She loved her Facebook, she loved Instagram,
she loved Facebook reels and funny videos on YouTube, and
she loved watching her shows on News Nation. And then
sometimes she would watch ninety Day Fiance Say and root
(23:56):
for certain couples. And she loved Jail from Long I'm
and in fact learned how to wrap the entire theme
song after about a week of watching it on repeat.
But there was still this little old lady in there
that could make the meanest chicken and dumplings that you've
ever had. The day she died, I thought to myself,
of such a random thought, I'll never taste those again.
(24:19):
I'll never taste her chicken and dumplings again. That she
would work on for eight hours, but it was always
the comfort food in my life. Now we do have
her on video making them, but you guys know how
it is. Decades and decades of perfecting everything will never
get it just right, or her banana pudding. So I
was thinking about stupid things like that, and I thought
(24:40):
it wasn't stupid to say I'm going to miss that.
It was really the love that was put into making
that to make her family happy. But as the days
of worn on and the shocks worn off, I look
back at that night and I see all these little
things that maybe her mind didn't realize she was dy
(25:00):
We didn't think she was dyed at that point, but
her soul new. I think because I think when you
are a caregiver for somebody twenty four to seven, the
bond you have is just intensified and deepened because you're
with them in their most vulnerable moments.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And there were.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Times I was sick and I didn't feel good, but
my care for her didn't change because she deserved that
for all the years that she was there for me,
maybe when she didn't feel like it to be a
caregiver for somebody twenty four to seven. For really a year,
for me, every thought in my day was her first.
(25:38):
Does she need something to bring her sugar up? Does
she need help getting up? Is she comfortable? I mean
she was mobile, but I wanted to make sure she
was good, absolutely comfortable, not wanting for anything. And so far,
the hard thing for me has been walking in her
room and her not there. It's so quiet in this house,
(25:59):
mainly because you would jack the volume to like ninety
because she couldn't hear. But it's so quiet in here,
and if I was in here working, she would call
my phone and say, hey, I need your help, or
can you bring me this, and my phone's not ringing
as much. I've got to learn to do life without
her in it, and she has been the center of
my life for a year, and I think that that
(26:20):
rewiring is going to take a long time. There are
times where I feel like the tears won't stop and
that the pain is just a physical ache. I just
feel like she's been ripped away from me, and I
feel empty and lost, but at the same time, I
feel her with me. All I can hear in my
(26:43):
ear is I'm okay. And that's something she would say,
even if she was sick or not feeling good. I'm okay,
I'm okay. And I've heard that over and over and
over in my ear since she passed, and I think
maybe that's her telling me that I made the right
decision to stop to see, and I don't regret it.
I'm not sitting here thinking should I have or should
(27:06):
I let them go? No. I feel like whatever happened
between the two of us when her head hit my
heart and she went, she left something in me and
I don't know what it is yet, but I feel
it and I can't explain it.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And you guys may think I'm crazy, but.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
That experience for me is something I know I will
never feel again on this earth. It was so powerful,
and if I have to say, other than the birth
of my kids, when they put my babies in my arms,
I've never felt something more life changing or powerful as
I did the minute her heart stopped. And I'm really
(27:48):
glad she felt comfortable enough to go with me, because
I don't think my mom could have handled what was
happening to her body at the time she passed. I'm
really trying to think about that look in my eye,
that gaze of peace and comfort until her heart stopped,
and not what I saw because she wasn't there for that.
(28:10):
She lost consciousness so quickly, So I'm trying to put
that out of my head.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
But it is a little traumatizing at this point. Can
still feel.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The weight of her forehead on my heart the minute
her heart stopped. But my gosh, for her to go
literally on my chest, it was something that was so
special to me because she felt safe enough I had
cared for her for a year and she knew in
a lot of ways I could handle it. We were
talking not too long ago about dreams she had when
(28:42):
she was young, and she dropped out of school her
senior year, and that was always a big regret for her,
and in fact, one of the last things she told
Sarah Rose was keep your grades.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Up, do good in school, get an education.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
At fourteen, she worked at a grocery store called Cash
and Carry in the produce department.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
She used to talk about how cold her hands would be.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
But she still has that first paste ub that she
got at fourteen in her house, and I'm gonna find
an age appropriate picture of her and put that paste
ub in there and put that at my studio. And
my daughter Taylor, who looks so much like her as
a young woman, asked her, Hey, if there was ever
anywhere you wanted to go in the world, where would
it have been? And she said Paris, and that kind
(29:23):
of shocked me because she never told me that this
was a few weeks ago, and I wish i'd asked
her why, but I didn't. But I definitely am going
to go to Paris, you know. And her name lives
on in Sarah Rose and Taylor. Her name was Sarah Taylor,
named my girls after her and my pop. And I
think the beautiful part of it for me is, even
(29:44):
though she's gone, she's really not because her DNA is
etched in every fiber of my being. In a lot
of ways, I am Sarah Francis Taylor too, and her
legacy lives on through all of us. It's gonna take
me a harry long time to get over this. You
could say she was ninety one. I mean, she had
(30:05):
a long life, that's awesome, but who she was to me,
she could have lived to be one hundred and one
and it would have been too soon for her to
leave me and all of us. But it was just
her time, and I've accepted that. But I'm very broken
right now, and I feel very empty and lost, and
(30:26):
I know it's going to take a very long time
for me to rewire myself to a life without her.
She never wanted to be a burden, and she would
say that often, I've ruined your life.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I don't want to be a burden. It's a Grammy.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You've added so much to my life being here twenty
four to seven with me, the lessons she didn't know
she was teaching me, the little words of advice that
we're fleeting at the time but profound now. I wouldn't
have had that had she not been here. And I'm
so grateful, even though it was a tough year, I'm
so grateful for this year, y'all. I will miss her
(31:02):
until I take my last breath. My mom and my
Grammy have always been my guiding force of who I
want to be as a woman, as a mother, and
as a grandmother. Eventually, she told me, not too long ago,
just wait till you hold that first grand baby. It
is a love you've never felt. You can't comprehend it
(31:24):
until it happens. And although I'm very happy to wait
for that, I guess when I hold my first grandbaby,
my first thought is going to be a her. There's
so much beauty in death, the grand finale of a
life well lived, full of love, laughter, and just family,
and I have no doubt she left this earth feeling
(31:48):
so loved. And when she left this earth, we all
felt we were so loved because she constantly poured love
into us, even in the times where she could barely
lift her head. She was our first thought, and we
were hers. And that's really what life's about, are those connections.
And I know some people don't have families that are
close like mine is, and that breaks my heart. But
(32:10):
those connections you have with the people that know you best,
that knew you from the time you were born. And
to think her last words on this earth were to me,
I love you. I'll hear those words every day. I
will feel the weight of her on me every day
as she passed, her little forehead just resting right over
(32:31):
my heart. And whatever happened after that, that I just
can't explain.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
So it's going to be a while, y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
But my goodness, how blessed was I to have someone
who loved me so fiercely and so purely, And what
she taught me throughout my life and especially this last year,
about the woman I want to be, the woman I'm
still becoming, even at forty eight. Some of that's changed
just since Friday, Grammy and I talked a lot about
signs from our loved ones that have gone, whether it
(32:57):
be a butterfly passing by, or a dal or finding
a golf ball in the most random places because my
pop was a golfer. Grammy's thing is gonna be bobby pins,
because they're all over the house and she used them,
and we're already finding them in random places.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
But she told me.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Probably three weeks ago, when I die, I'm gonna come
see you and you're gonna know I'm there. And so
far she is kept up with that promise, and it's
given me a lot of comfort in such a traumatic
and devastating time for me. And years ago when I
lost someone very close to me, I found this little
passage that is a good reminder that while her little
(33:38):
shell that carried that big, beautiful personality is gone, it
doesn't mean she's gone. And I'm gonna read this because
it's brought me comfort. I'm standing upon the seashore. A
ship at my side spreads her white sails to the
morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is
an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch
(34:01):
her until at length, she hangs like a speck of
white cloud, just where the sea and sky come to
mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says,
there she is gone, Gone where gone from my sight?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
She is just as large and massed in hull and
spar as she was when she left my side, and
she is just as able to bear her load of
living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is
in me, not in her. And just at the moment
when someone at my side says there she is gone,
(34:41):
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout here she comes,
and that is dying. I want to thank you guys
for loving Grammy. She read every message that was posted.
We would sit there in the High Hospital when we
had nothing else to do but hear the beep of
(35:02):
a machine, and we just read through them. And it
brought her so much joy. And even though she never
met any of y'all, she loved you like family because
you loved me.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I hope I can do her proud.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I know she'll be watching, and we have a couple
of rough days coming up. We have her viewing, which
is not going to be a viewing, because she said,
I don't want people looking at my dead body. But
we will have our time with her, and we will
be able to see her and say our goodbyes, and
we have plans of what we're going to do that
was very unique to her before we close that casket
(35:36):
one last time, and then we will have graveside services
because she did not want a funeral. And I'm going
to speak, and I have not written what I'm going
to say, because how do you sum up Sarah Francis
in five minutes? She was larger than life. But I
think I'll be okay, and I may not write a thing.
(35:56):
I may get up there and just wing it. But
we have some hard days ahead, and our family is
broken and devastated, and my kids are taking it very
hard to So keep us in your prayers. Thank you
for loving her, Thank you for loving me. It's really
meant a lot. I'm not sure when I'll be back
to do some normal stuff. I have a lot to
catch up on, and maybe once we get the formalities
(36:20):
out of the way, and I have a few days
to kind of just start to navigate this brand new
road that I'm on that's going to be very different
than the one I've lived for the last year, or
even the last forty eight years, because she's been with me,
and I know how lucky I am to have had
her for forty eight years. So many people never come
(36:40):
close to having their grandparents and their lives that long.
It is just a new chapter for this family. So
thank you for being patient as I navigate this unimaginable
grief that I'm feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
But I will be back.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
But I wanted to do this because maybe getting it
out into the universe instead of just in my heart
and my head is one thing. But I also wanted
to share my thoughts with you guys about her, and
also to update what had happened, because the last thing
I posted on YouTube was very hopeful, and I guess
in a lot of ways that was good because that
night I didn't treat her like she was dying.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I treated her like Grammy and we had the best time, y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
We laughed so hard, and just to thank you to
all the nurses the doctors that took good care of her.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
She loved all of them.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
She couldn't remember everybody's names, but she would say, can
I call you Darling.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
If you made it this far, I think this may
have been more of a therapy session for me than anything,
but I really wanted to express my gratitude to all
of you that have reached out. Those of you that
have donated, we really appreciate it. We've been using that
to do what we need to do to honor her
(37:53):
life at her service.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And I think it's safe for me to say thank
you from for the love you guys have given her
over the years when you've heard the funny stories about
her and in the last year the ups and downs.
I love our community. I'm not sure when I'll be
back doing regular episodes. It's the worst time of the
year for me not to be working, but this is
more important right now to navigate this with my heart,
(38:21):
but also my mom, who has lost her last core
family member. It's just her now and my kids and
to just be present here for them. So I will
see you guys when I see you. I love all y'all.
Thank you so much, And to Gramy, godspeed woman. Stay
close to me.
Let you know, Ala Byers, I wanted to hop on
and just do an episode for Grammy because Grammy loved
this podcast. She was so proud of what I've built here,
this community. All of your well wishes were read to her,
and it just blew her away that so many people
from all over the world took a moment to think
(00:22):
about her pray for her. And I've shared Grammy with
you guys probably since the first week of this podcast,
and it's been a minute, so a lot of you
felt like you knew her, and that's just how Grammy was.
You met her once in person, and you felt like
you've known her forever, and I guess even from Afar
it was the same, because she was definitely one of
a kind. The last update I posted to YouTube was
(00:45):
somewhat hopeful, but before we get there, we'll talk about
what happened that led us to Grammy leaving this world
at five point thirty six am on Friday with her
head on my heart. She had been in the hospital
a few weeks ago for seediff, which is.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Hard for elderly.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
It's something that's common, but in true Grammy fashion, she
beat it and we decided to send her to a
ten day inpatient rehab to try to get some strength back,
do some occupational therapy so that she would feel more
comfortable doing certain things for herself safely.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
And she really.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Enjoyed her time over there at Encompass Health. It's a
beautiful facility. They took amazing care of her.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
She loved the food.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Her appetite had been really diminishing in the last few weeks,
and then she got her appetite back and every meal
she would rave about and she was doing great, y'all.
I had to go Halloween to do two hours with
her so that they could show me how I could
help her. Once she came back home, she was walking
so fast, she had energy. Really, it was the best
(01:48):
we had seen her in a year, and so there
was a lot of hope that this was the turning
point for her, that she would get better and we
would be able to enjoy the holidays and maybe we're
going to get a break. So she came home last
Sunday a week this past Sunday, she had on her
little graduation T shirt from the rehab place, and I'd
(02:09):
never seen Grammy and a T shirt, by the way,
so it was really weird. For me, but she was
proud of it because she worked very hard to get
that strength back and to get some independence, and she
was very proud of herself. And the next morning, since
her appetite had improved, she wanted a gravy biscuit, so
got that ready for her and I was walking her
to the kitchen table and she stopped just in her tracks,
(02:29):
and that was happening back when her aphib was acting up.
She would get dizzy sometimes, so I asked her, are
you dizzy? And she just didn't talk for a second,
and then she tried to take a step and started
going to the right. And I'm always two steps behind
her because I'm nervous and I just don't want a
fall to be anything.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
That would set us back in a big way.
Speaker 1 (02:51):
So I was able to grab her easier down to
the ground, and looking back, it was very clear to
me that her femur was broken, but at the time,
I think my Runnalim was just take care of her.
I pulled her and got her on the couch. My son,
who's a firefighter EMT, came in. I'd already called nine
to one one, took a look at her and he said, yeah,
I'm glad you called something's going on with this leg
(03:12):
big time. So they confirmed she had broken her femur,
which was a devastating diagnosis for us because of how
good she was walking and how good she was doing,
and we knew this was going to be a huge setback.
So the next day, on Tuesday, they put a rod in.
The surgery went as well as it could perfect really,
given the fact that she was ninety one and her
(03:34):
pain level was zero, which is amazing. She had had
some chronic pain in her leg that now we think
was attributed to this fracture. They didn't know if maybe
chronic use of steroids over the years for her arthritis
was the culprit. It can weaken your bones and she
had osteoarthritis kind of a perfect storm, or did she
(03:54):
have a fracture that was there that over time kind
of like a windshield when it cracks, it's small at first,
but over time it gets bigger. She had no postop pain,
but we were dealing with some really bad nausea and
vomiting the first two days after surgery that we attributed
to anesthesia. No food, still putting her on narcotics because
(04:15):
we didn't want to have to catch up with bad.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Pain if it came along.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
And so finally by Thursday evening, she was just nauseous
but not getting sick. So I ran to the store
and I thought, what would be bland that I could
give her that would get some food on her stomach
but not be harsh on her stomach. So I got
baby food. I got peaches because she loves peaches. And
every thirty minutes Thursday night, I was giving her a
(04:40):
spoonful of peaches and a little bit to drink, just
to sort of ease your stomach back into having food,
so that maybe she would feel better and be able
to get up for therapy and just try to give
her some fuel. Friday morning, the doctor was in taking
a look at her, and we realized her hemoglobein was
really really low, and so they ordered some blood and
(05:02):
they were giving her a transfusion, and her blood pressure
just bottomed out, which is kind of odd happening during
the transfusion. She had never had a reaction to that,
but the doctor was in there for it, and so
they opened up the flow on the blood and the
fluids and put.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Her head down and her blood pressure came up.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
And they were asking her where she was, Prisma, why
are you here?
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Well, I broke my.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Leg, so we were like, okay, she's with it, and
then she got much better, so we thought maybe it
was a fluke.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
But the doctor said, let me.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Just do a set of her belly just to make
sure we're not bleeding out anywhere. Because during the drop,
the orthopedic surgeon came in and unwrapped her leg and said,
her leg looks great, actually better than I thought.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
This is not the problem. The doctor decided to move
her to the step.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
Down ICU unit so that they could monitor her vitals
for twenty four hours to make sure we weren't dipping again.
By the time we got her settled in there, she
was back to her chatty self, normal Grammy. Grammy loved
to talk y'all. Some times I would have to tell her,
let me talk to the doctor because Grammy would give
a whole life history to where the doctors obviously wanted
to know things that were relevant in the moment. And
(06:09):
these two surgeons came in and said, we did the
CT and she essentially had some dead gut. That was
a devastating diagnosis, and they told us there were two options.
They could go in and it would be a full
length incision down the length of her belly.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
They would take out the dead gut. They would leave that.
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Incision open for an undetermined amount of time and maybe
have to go back in and take out more deck gut,
and he told of all the other things they would
have to do in order to try and remedy this,
and my mom and I looked at each other and
we didn't have to say a word because Grammy's daughter,
mayunt Angie, who you guys know I lost almost four
(06:52):
years ago, had the same thing, and she was fifty
four and she never got better.
Speaker 2 (06:57):
She was constantly septic.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
They would get her down to a safer level, sender home,
and then she'd.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Be right back in the hospital.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
And Gramy lost her youngest daughter at fifty four on
Mother's Day coming up four years. So we never wanted
that for Grammy, and I don't think Gramy really comprehended
what the doctor was saying. Her hearing has gone a
bit in the last six months, and she said, well,
I'll think about it and tell you tomorrow. But the
doctors told us the other option is that we would
(07:25):
keep her comfortable. It would be a relatively quick passing,
and so that was the biggest gut punch to us.
Later on, I posted on my socials about Grammy because
we needed prayer as it was devastating. I came home
just felt like I couldn't breathe could feel my heart breaking,
and my kids went up to see her. And even
though I don't think her brain knew she was dying,
(07:47):
her soul did because she was giving my kids at
vice for their futures. But in the meantime, the last
YouTube update I posted, her numbers were moving back in
the right direction where she didn't look septic and her
hemoglobin was coming up to normal levels, and that gave
us a lot of hope that maybe this diagnosis was wrong,
(08:09):
because the doctor did say I could go in there
find you have no dead gut, and I would close
you back up and you would have an incision. So
we were hoping that was the case because her numbers
were just improving by the hour, and the medical staff
was really shocked at how these numbers very quickly went
back to normal, so we had hope, Okay, we're just
(08:31):
going to be dealing with this leg So my mom
and I were there standing by her bed after everybody
had left. I was coming up to relieve my mom
to take the night shift. I wanted to stay up
and watch her blood pressure all night, make sure we
were good. And Gramy looked at us and she said,
y'all are sparkling, And so me and Mom immediately looked
down on our clothes to see if we have glitter
(08:51):
on us or something. Did we hug somebody to have glitter?
We just didn't know, but we had nothing on us.
And it wasn't until after she passed that we my
aunt Angie and my pop, her husband standing right there
with us. We were guarding her in life, and they
were there to take her home. That's something that's been
very comforting to me in the days since she passed.
(09:13):
But that night, Grammy was back to normal. She loved
to make the nurses laugh.
Speaker 2 (09:19):
She loved to make it fun for them. She knew.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
She would always say, I bet they get some patients
that aren't easy to work with, and I'm not going
to be one of those. So even when she wasn't
feeling good, she would always try to make it pleasant
for the nurses that were in her room. Her hands
and her feet were just so cold that night, and
they were trying to get blood out of her finger
at that point to measure these levels that we were monitoring,
(09:42):
and it took a while. So twenty minutes Grammy had
them in stitches and me and Grammy go back and
forth and make people laugh.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
That's just how we roll.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
After they left the room, this was about five twenty
in the morning on Friday, Grammy said, why don't we
get a little sleep. I want to wake up and
call Sarah, which is my daughter, at seven, to wake
her up for school because one time, y'all, one time
this year, we both slept through our alarms and she
was fifteen minutes late. In every day since then, Grammy
(10:11):
called the both of us. Are you awake? Are you up?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Are you getting ready?
Speaker 1 (10:15):
And I said okay, and she said I love you.
I said I love you too, Grammy. And as soon
as I said I love you too, Grammy, I heard
her trying to cough and I could hear something in
her throat and I said, hey, Grammy, just give it
a good cough.
Speaker 2 (10:31):
And then that sound.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Got louder and louder, and I knew something was happening.
And so it was dark in there because I just
turned the white off. I just saw something coming out
of her nose and her mouth, and so I immediately
hit the nurse button. I hit the light, and I
grabbed a washcloth that was right beside her bed and
wiped her face and she locked eyes with me. I
(10:53):
pulled her up with both hands to an upright position
to where we were face to face to make sure
nothing was aspirated until the nurse got in there. It
was ten seconds, but it felt like a year, and
she locked eyes with me, and I have to say, y'all,
it's like she stared through my soul. It was not
(11:13):
a panic look. It was a very peaceful, serene look.
And the weight of her body just came forward. And
I glanced up at her heart monitor and it went
from eighty to zero. And the minute that her forehead
literally landed on top of my heart, her heart stopped.
And what I felt after that is something I will
(11:34):
remember until I take my last breath on this earth.
I felt like her soul passed right through me, and
it was this intense feeling of comfort and warmth, almost
like an internal hug, and it stayed with me for
a while. So they bring in the critical care team
and her nurses are very upset as they're trying to
(11:55):
work on her, and they start CPR and I saw
them doing it and it was so so violent and
it's the way you do it. But here's my little
grandma ninety one, tiny little thing. I just yelled, stop,
she's gone, let her go. And they were looking at
me and still going and they said they got a
little pulse back. I looked at it was about forty
(12:17):
six at that point. They sent me out into the hallway.
So I called my mom and I said, Mom, she's gone.
Can we stop CPR. They're doing CPR. She said stop.
So I ran in the room and I said stop.
They were about to shock her. I said, this is
how she wanted to go. I remember one time laying
in the bed with her, and she asked me, are
(12:37):
you afraid of dying? And I said, no, not at all.
It's part of life. It's the only guarantee besides the
day we're born. And I said, are you and she
said no. I just don't want to suffer. I don't
want to lay there and suffer. And so from the
time I told her I love you too, Grammy to
the time her head hit my chest. I would estimate
(12:59):
maybe ten seconds, and she really didn't know what hit her.
The nurses later confirmed that that the minute she locked
eyes with me and that heart stopped, it was over
and she didn't suffer. So it was the easiest thing
for me to do to tell them to stop. I said,
I'm her power of attorney. No resuscitation. I knew she
had aspirated stuff. It was just going to be inevitable,
(13:22):
and she was gone. So they cleaned her up and
I went in there and I sat down by her
and grabbed her hand, and it was warm that night.
It was so cold, but that little hand with her
arthritis and her huge knuckles, put her hand in mine
and it was warm. And I looked at her face,
and she had a little smile on her face, y'all,
And she had a little tear just hanging in the
(13:43):
very corner of her eye, and I thought, that tear
is for leaving us, but that smile is because she
saw her daughter. And not too long ago we were
talking about dying and what we hoped to see when
we cross, and I said, Okay, besides, that's Angie, who's
the one person you're looking forward to seeing and she said, Angie.
(14:06):
She said, I love your pop, my parents, my grandmother
who she loved very dearly, but she said my baby.
So I felt this sense of comfort looking at this
little smile on her face and this.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Little tear that I wiped away that I think was.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
For us, And I thought the minute her head hit
my chest, she saw her daughter, and I talked to
her and I thanked her for who she was to
me in my life, which was a very central figure
from the day I was born. She's not only been
a grandmother, but in the year that she lived with
(14:41):
me and I took care of her, our relationship grew
to something past the grandmother granddaughter relationship.
Speaker 2 (14:49):
It matured it was more of.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
A woman to woman with still that grandmother a granddaughter relationship.
But we had a lot of talks over this year
about life, her giving me advice that at the time
I thought was just random ramblings from her, but really
were things she wanted me to know, the things she
didn't get to do, the way she didn't handle situations.
(15:14):
It was things I think in retrospect of her own life,
she would hope sharing a little wisdom with me might
save me from taking a detour of how I should
do things or whatever.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
I'm just still sort of.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
Thinking back to all these conversations we had in the
lessons that were embedded in those that didn't seem significant
at the time, but do now. When I talk about
her love in this podcast, y'all, she loved this podcast.
I mean, fifteen minutes before she died, she was so
proud to tell everybody what I did, and she was
trying to get me new listeners with the Lab girls.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
Do you like true crime? Yeah, she has a podcast.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
I cannot tell you how many times she has told
people what I do and said go subscribe. And some
of you may be listening to this because of her.
I left the hospital feeling really weird, packing up the room,
getting my stuff, getting her stuff that we had brought
for her, and it was just a shock. I had
(16:11):
not comprehended what had just happened, although in the moment
I was stronger than I ever thought I could be.
And I went to my mom's and my dads who
lived two doors up for me, and we had a moment.
And all of our family lives on the same street,
and so we went and told my brother and his
wife and then we came home and told the kids,
(16:34):
and so it's just been a very devastating time for us.
My kids lived a year of their life in the
same house with their ninety one year old grandmother and
had fun with her. They have videos I haven't even
seen where they would play around with her and get
her laughing. And you know, even if it was just
popping in to give her a kiss, or hopping in
(16:54):
the bed with her and watching funny videos or tiktoks
you love funny videos, y'all, her talking to them about
their futures. It's added so much to their life for
the rest of their life to have this intimate time
with her here in our home that I'm so grateful for,
and it makes that loss even harder.
Speaker 2 (17:13):
But that's the price of love. The price of.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
Loving someone so much is that when they go, the
devastation is amplified and it reaches the very back corners
of your heart and your soul. And for me, I've
been so hardwired to think of her first all day
every day. How is her sugar? Do you need to
get up? Are you thirsty? Are you hungry? Or just
(17:41):
randomly hoping in bed with her with my laptop to
do my work or just to lay and watch TV,
which that woman watched News Nation from the time she
got up in the morning until she fell asleep at night.
She loved keeping up with the news and had gotten
into true crime since she had been with me, and
sometimes the most profound moments we had, I think we're
(18:04):
just laying in silence, and I'd be in my own world,
She'd be in her own world.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
But we were together.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
After Hurricane Helene hit, she stayed with me for two
months because she didn't have power at her house, and
she really got used to being here, the noise, the
people in and out, the family popping in because we
all live on the same street, so it was really
easy to just pop over and say hi. And my
kids and their friends that she loved like her own grandkids,
(18:32):
some of which she saw grow up, the pets that
she grew to love. It was a full house, but
it was full of love. And while her goal that
she spoke out loud was to go back home and
be independent, in the last few weeks she talked about
selling her house and how it would be so lonely
(18:52):
to go back there, and it's just quiet to where
in my house. There's always a phone ringing, there's always
a pet coming up to see her, somebody in her
room hanging out with her. And I think she realized
that the home that she lived in was just a
structure and it was really the people in it that
made it what it was. And after my aunt died,
(19:14):
she really lost that emotional connection to her house that
she had lived in since nineteen sixty because she would
look for my aunt every day at five when she
would get off work, and she would stop by because
it was on our way home, and they would have dinner,
and we a lot of times we would all go
over there and sit and have dinner and just catch
up about our day. And when she lived on her own,
(19:34):
her house was less than five minutes away, so it
was multiple times a week we would all kind of
just hang out over there and just sit around the
table and laugh and eat and give her some company.
But when she came to live with me, there were
two things that I wanted for her. Number One, I
wanted this to feel like her home. So I fixed
(19:55):
up the bedroom to a Grammy bedroom. And just last week,
Grammy was talking about going back to rehab and she said, well,
when I go home, I'm gonna do this and this
and this, And my mom said, a mom, you're not
gonna be able to go home immediately, And Grahmy said, no,
home at Gigi's. And that means so much to me
now because in the end, this was her home. The
(20:18):
other thing that I wanted to do was to make
sure she never lost her dignity in me having to
care for her, because that was something that was very
important to her. She was the kind of woman that
always had to be dressed nicely. Even on her worst
days going to the doctor, she would get up and
it would take three four hours for her to get
a shower and to get ready to go, and it
(20:39):
would wear her out. But she had to present herself
as very well put together and just always a lady.
And it's interesting because the night she passed, we were
talking and like I say, she was normal. She was
as normal as she could have been given the day
she had, and in the night she died, she thanked
me for allowing her to keep her dignity in the
(21:00):
things I would have to do to take care.
Speaker 2 (21:01):
Of her sometimes when she was sick.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
So I always made sure in the times that we
were doing things that very well could have made her
lose her dignity. We laughed and deflected that feeling into
something fun. So to hear those two things from her
in the last week of her life meant so much
to me, because that's all I wanted. She maybe ninety one,
(21:25):
she may need help, but in her heart and her mind,
which was intact until she took her last breath, she
kept that dignity and that's what I wanted for her.
And I've done a lot of inventory since Friday morning
about who she was to me from the time I
was little, and she was just this light in my life.
(21:47):
Grandparents are so special, and if you had good ones,
you know what I'm talking about. Being in her presence
was comforting in itself. It didn't matter what kind of
day I had. If I walked into her house when
she was living at home, I immediately felt like whatever
was bothering me was left at the door.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
She was just a happy place for me.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Every milestone in my life she celebrated with me pure joy.
Her family meant everything to her, and we had five
generations on one street till she died, and she was
so proud of that. But her family was her rock,
and she was the backbone of this family. I think
that is why she fought so hard all year, because
(22:30):
she would say, I have to live, I have to
keep you guys straight, and that was just her. But
I was looking at these old pictures of her. I'm
going through and I'm doing the slide show for her viewing,
which we haven't been able to schedule yet. We're trying
to get insurance to pay out, and that's a pain.
But looking at these pictures of her before she was Grammy,
she was Sarah Francis, this young woman full of hope
(22:51):
and dreams and vibrant and gorgeous. And I thought to myself,
how sad I didn't get to know that version of her,
because I think we would have been best friends in
that time too. One story that really stands out to me,
that's a big clue of who she was before she
was a wife and a mother and a grandmother is
as a girl, they lived right beside this big field
(23:13):
and there was a bull in the field and Grammy
said she would get her red dress on and she
would go open the gate and stand right by it.
And she said, I would sway left and right move
my dress and when the bull would come, she would
get out of the gate. It was always such a
funny story that she told. But just this little daredevil
that had no fear, that really was who she ended
(23:34):
up being later in life. I just love that story.
She's an old Southern woman raised in the South, but
she was hip, y'all. She loved her Facebook, she loved Instagram,
she loved Facebook reels and funny videos on YouTube, and
she loved watching her shows on News Nation. And then
sometimes she would watch ninety Day Fiance Say and root
(23:56):
for certain couples. And she loved Jail from Long I'm
and in fact learned how to wrap the entire theme
song after about a week of watching it on repeat.
But there was still this little old lady in there
that could make the meanest chicken and dumplings that you've
ever had. The day she died, I thought to myself,
of such a random thought, I'll never taste those again.
(24:19):
I'll never taste her chicken and dumplings again. That she
would work on for eight hours, but it was always
the comfort food in my life. Now we do have
her on video making them, but you guys know how
it is. Decades and decades of perfecting everything will never
get it just right, or her banana pudding. So I
was thinking about stupid things like that, and I thought
(24:40):
it wasn't stupid to say I'm going to miss that.
It was really the love that was put into making
that to make her family happy. But as the days
of worn on and the shocks worn off, I look
back at that night and I see all these little
things that maybe her mind didn't realize she was dy
(25:00):
We didn't think she was dyed at that point, but
her soul new. I think because I think when you
are a caregiver for somebody twenty four to seven, the
bond you have is just intensified and deepened because you're
with them in their most vulnerable moments.
Speaker 2 (25:16):
And there were.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Times I was sick and I didn't feel good, but
my care for her didn't change because she deserved that
for all the years that she was there for me,
maybe when she didn't feel like it to be a
caregiver for somebody twenty four to seven. For really a year,
for me, every thought in my day was her first.
(25:38):
Does she need something to bring her sugar up? Does
she need help getting up? Is she comfortable? I mean
she was mobile, but I wanted to make sure she
was good, absolutely comfortable, not wanting for anything. And so far,
the hard thing for me has been walking in her
room and her not there. It's so quiet in this house,
(25:59):
mainly because you would jack the volume to like ninety
because she couldn't hear. But it's so quiet in here,
and if I was in here working, she would call
my phone and say, hey, I need your help, or
can you bring me this, and my phone's not ringing
as much. I've got to learn to do life without
her in it, and she has been the center of
my life for a year, and I think that that
(26:20):
rewiring is going to take a long time. There are
times where I feel like the tears won't stop and
that the pain is just a physical ache. I just
feel like she's been ripped away from me, and I
feel empty and lost, but at the same time, I
feel her with me. All I can hear in my
(26:43):
ear is I'm okay. And that's something she would say,
even if she was sick or not feeling good. I'm okay,
I'm okay. And I've heard that over and over and
over in my ear since she passed, and I think
maybe that's her telling me that I made the right
decision to stop to see, and I don't regret it.
I'm not sitting here thinking should I have or should
(27:06):
I let them go? No. I feel like whatever happened
between the two of us when her head hit my
heart and she went, she left something in me and
I don't know what it is yet, but I feel
it and I can't explain it.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And you guys may think I'm crazy, but.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
That experience for me is something I know I will
never feel again on this earth. It was so powerful,
and if I have to say, other than the birth
of my kids, when they put my babies in my arms,
I've never felt something more life changing or powerful as
I did the minute her heart stopped. And I'm really
(27:48):
glad she felt comfortable enough to go with me, because
I don't think my mom could have handled what was
happening to her body at the time she passed. I'm
really trying to think about that look in my eye,
that gaze of peace and comfort until her heart stopped,
and not what I saw because she wasn't there for that.
(28:10):
She lost consciousness so quickly, So I'm trying to put
that out of my head.
Speaker 2 (28:15):
But it is a little traumatizing at this point. Can
still feel.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
The weight of her forehead on my heart the minute
her heart stopped. But my gosh, for her to go
literally on my chest, it was something that was so
special to me because she felt safe enough I had
cared for her for a year and she knew in
a lot of ways I could handle it. We were
talking not too long ago about dreams she had when
(28:42):
she was young, and she dropped out of school her
senior year, and that was always a big regret for her,
and in fact, one of the last things she told
Sarah Rose was keep your grades.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Up, do good in school, get an education.
Speaker 1 (28:53):
At fourteen, she worked at a grocery store called Cash
and Carry in the produce department.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
She used to talk about how cold her hands would be.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
But she still has that first paste ub that she
got at fourteen in her house, and I'm gonna find
an age appropriate picture of her and put that paste
ub in there and put that at my studio. And
my daughter Taylor, who looks so much like her as
a young woman, asked her, Hey, if there was ever
anywhere you wanted to go in the world, where would
it have been? And she said Paris, and that kind
(29:23):
of shocked me because she never told me that this
was a few weeks ago, and I wish i'd asked
her why, but I didn't. But I definitely am going
to go to Paris, you know. And her name lives
on in Sarah Rose and Taylor. Her name was Sarah Taylor,
named my girls after her and my pop. And I
think the beautiful part of it for me is, even
(29:44):
though she's gone, she's really not because her DNA is
etched in every fiber of my being. In a lot
of ways, I am Sarah Francis Taylor too, and her
legacy lives on through all of us. It's gonna take
me a harry long time to get over this. You
could say she was ninety one. I mean, she had
(30:05):
a long life, that's awesome, but who she was to me,
she could have lived to be one hundred and one
and it would have been too soon for her to
leave me and all of us. But it was just
her time, and I've accepted that. But I'm very broken
right now, and I feel very empty and lost, and
(30:26):
I know it's going to take a very long time
for me to rewire myself to a life without her.
She never wanted to be a burden, and she would
say that often, I've ruined your life.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I don't want to be a burden. It's a Grammy.
Speaker 1 (30:40):
You've added so much to my life being here twenty
four to seven with me, the lessons she didn't know
she was teaching me, the little words of advice that
we're fleeting at the time but profound now. I wouldn't
have had that had she not been here. And I'm
so grateful, even though it was a tough year, I'm
so grateful for this year, y'all. I will miss her
(31:02):
until I take my last breath. My mom and my
Grammy have always been my guiding force of who I
want to be as a woman, as a mother, and
as a grandmother. Eventually, she told me, not too long ago,
just wait till you hold that first grand baby. It
is a love you've never felt. You can't comprehend it
(31:24):
until it happens. And although I'm very happy to wait
for that, I guess when I hold my first grandbaby,
my first thought is going to be a her. There's
so much beauty in death, the grand finale of a
life well lived, full of love, laughter, and just family,
and I have no doubt she left this earth feeling
(31:48):
so loved. And when she left this earth, we all
felt we were so loved because she constantly poured love
into us, even in the times where she could barely
lift her head. She was our first thought, and we
were hers. And that's really what life's about, are those connections.
And I know some people don't have families that are
close like mine is, and that breaks my heart. But
(32:10):
those connections you have with the people that know you best,
that knew you from the time you were born. And
to think her last words on this earth were to me,
I love you. I'll hear those words every day. I
will feel the weight of her on me every day
as she passed, her little forehead just resting right over
(32:31):
my heart. And whatever happened after that, that I just
can't explain.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
So it's going to be a while, y'all.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
But my goodness, how blessed was I to have someone
who loved me so fiercely and so purely, And what
she taught me throughout my life and especially this last year,
about the woman I want to be, the woman I'm
still becoming, even at forty eight. Some of that's changed
just since Friday, Grammy and I talked a lot about
signs from our loved ones that have gone, whether it
(32:57):
be a butterfly passing by, or a dal or finding
a golf ball in the most random places because my
pop was a golfer. Grammy's thing is gonna be bobby pins,
because they're all over the house and she used them,
and we're already finding them in random places.
Speaker 2 (33:11):
But she told me.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Probably three weeks ago, when I die, I'm gonna come
see you and you're gonna know I'm there. And so
far she is kept up with that promise, and it's
given me a lot of comfort in such a traumatic
and devastating time for me. And years ago when I
lost someone very close to me, I found this little
passage that is a good reminder that while her little
(33:38):
shell that carried that big, beautiful personality is gone, it
doesn't mean she's gone. And I'm gonna read this because
it's brought me comfort. I'm standing upon the seashore. A
ship at my side spreads her white sails to the
morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is
an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch
(34:01):
her until at length, she hangs like a speck of
white cloud, just where the sea and sky come to
mingle with each other. Then someone at my side says,
there she is gone, Gone where gone from my sight?
Speaker 2 (34:18):
That's all.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
She is just as large and massed in hull and
spar as she was when she left my side, and
she is just as able to bear her load of
living freight to her destined port. Her diminished size is
in me, not in her. And just at the moment
when someone at my side says there she is gone,
(34:41):
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout here she comes,
and that is dying. I want to thank you guys
for loving Grammy. She read every message that was posted.
We would sit there in the High Hospital when we
had nothing else to do but hear the beep of
(35:02):
a machine, and we just read through them. And it
brought her so much joy. And even though she never
met any of y'all, she loved you like family because
you loved me.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
I hope I can do her proud.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
I know she'll be watching, and we have a couple
of rough days coming up. We have her viewing, which
is not going to be a viewing, because she said,
I don't want people looking at my dead body. But
we will have our time with her, and we will
be able to see her and say our goodbyes, and
we have plans of what we're going to do that
was very unique to her before we close that casket
(35:36):
one last time, and then we will have graveside services
because she did not want a funeral. And I'm going
to speak, and I have not written what I'm going
to say, because how do you sum up Sarah Francis
in five minutes? She was larger than life. But I
think I'll be okay, and I may not write a thing.
(35:56):
I may get up there and just wing it. But
we have some hard days ahead, and our family is
broken and devastated, and my kids are taking it very
hard to So keep us in your prayers. Thank you
for loving her, Thank you for loving me. It's really
meant a lot. I'm not sure when I'll be back
to do some normal stuff. I have a lot to
catch up on, and maybe once we get the formalities
(36:20):
out of the way, and I have a few days
to kind of just start to navigate this brand new
road that I'm on that's going to be very different
than the one I've lived for the last year, or
even the last forty eight years, because she's been with me,
and I know how lucky I am to have had
her for forty eight years. So many people never come
(36:40):
close to having their grandparents and their lives that long.
It is just a new chapter for this family. So
thank you for being patient as I navigate this unimaginable
grief that I'm feeling right now.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
But I will be back.
Speaker 1 (36:55):
But I wanted to do this because maybe getting it
out into the universe instead of just in my heart
and my head is one thing. But I also wanted
to share my thoughts with you guys about her, and
also to update what had happened, because the last thing
I posted on YouTube was very hopeful, and I guess
in a lot of ways that was good because that
night I didn't treat her like she was dying.
Speaker 2 (37:16):
I treated her like Grammy and we had the best time, y'all.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
We laughed so hard, and just to thank you to
all the nurses the doctors that took good care of her.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
She loved all of them.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
She couldn't remember everybody's names, but she would say, can
I call you Darling.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
So thank you guys for listening.
Speaker 1 (37:33):
If you made it this far, I think this may
have been more of a therapy session for me than anything,
but I really wanted to express my gratitude to all
of you that have reached out. Those of you that
have donated, we really appreciate it. We've been using that
to do what we need to do to honor her
(37:53):
life at her service.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
So thank you very much.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
And I think it's safe for me to say thank
you from for the love you guys have given her
over the years when you've heard the funny stories about
her and in the last year the ups and downs.
I love our community. I'm not sure when I'll be
back doing regular episodes. It's the worst time of the
year for me not to be working, but this is
more important right now to navigate this with my heart,
(38:21):
but also my mom, who has lost her last core
family member. It's just her now and my kids and
to just be present here for them. So I will
see you guys when I see you. I love all y'all.
Thank you so much, And to Gramy, godspeed woman. Stay
close to me.
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