liveonearth | Obituary: Through a Breaking Dam

My life is rushing forward now, things that have been long delayed are happening. This morning my grandmother died. My father's mother is no more. She lived a full life and was 97. She was an early example for me of a self-sufficient working woman--she was an ad-woman for a newspaper.

Ever since she was put in her retirement "home" she has been miserable and wished to die. She said it was a jail. The loss of her freedom and independence was more than she could bear. She lived independently rather late in life but her falls kept getting worse. I worry about my father. He has been conflicted about this inevitable event for a long time, and now that it has happened he may be conflicted about it from the other side.