First off, I need to say that I have wonderful friends who I would do anything for, and the feeling is mutual. This knowledge has helped in more ways than I even realized existed. Thank you, everyone, for your contributions and help over the past couple weeks. You all are amazing.
I got the chance to go back to Montana and say goodbye to my grandparents. The experience... Oh gods, how to explain...
First, when we got to the airport it was -17°F, and it felt even colder. This was not my first time experiencing these temperatures, and I had checked ahead to see what the forecast was, so I knew what to expect. My travel partner, however, did not. The first thing he did as we stepped off the plane was take a deep belly breath. The second thing he did was attempt to cough his lungs out of his body, because subzero temperatures are not made for fast consumption. We got my suitcase and made our way to find the rental car agency. After some debate (and the fact that the roads were essentially ice), we got the car with a mid-level insurance plan, then made our way to the hotel.
I'm going to spare most of the details, though getting together with one of my family friends gave me a new look at some of the situations I experienced growing up. Their opinion was that if my parents could have gotten away with it, they would have dressed me in burlap sacks all day every day until I was married. It was only through them finding a picture of me on their mother's computer that spurred them to finding me. Granted, finding me included a lot of ribbing of my parents' son, as we discovered over drinks. Apparently any time the conversation turned to "so-and-so's sister got hot!", inevitably my name would get brought up as well. It was really nice to reconnect with them and find out how things were going on in their life. ^^
Sunday morning started bright... And I'm not joking. It was sunny, and sun reflects like a mofo off the snow. I drove us up to my grandparents house, getting there around 9:30. There were no cars in the area below, giving the initial impression that we had succeeded in the part of staying under the radar and not walking into a full-fledged family gathering... But would my grandparents be at home. That was the next bit we needed to find out. We walked up the steps that I had traversed so many times, and as I grew older I would also sweep the snow off those steps in the current weather condition so it wouldn't turn to ice and be the cause of someone slipping.
I knocked on the front door when we reached it, and we waited for about a minute, not sure if anyone was home or not. Finally, my grandfather answered the door. As he let us in he told us that my grandmother was still sleeping, and I happened to peek into their bedroom and saw her. For a second I thought I was looking at a skeleton.
It turned out that my uncle was in town for his turn of caring for his parents, and he was cooking breakfast when we arrived. We were served coffee, bacon, and waffles. My grandfather admonished me that I never ate enough, and that I should eat breakfast. So we did. Eventually my grandmother woke up and joined us. Even with their warnings, and even with the knowledge that she was not doing well, nothing could have prepared me for how she looked. She was so thin...
All in all we only stayed a couple of hours. She had a hard time with any sentences over seven words long, and even when my uncle a picture of her and me on the table and asked her who the little girl was (me), she couldn't even say my name. She did seem much happier than she had when I had last been there. She smiled a lot more, and did not tell my grandfather that he couldn't have syrup on his waffles because it wouldn't be good for his diet. She also kept stealing sips of coffee from my grandfather's cup. As we left I told them both that I loved them, because I do.
This past Wednesday (8 January 2014) I got a text saying that my Grandmother had passed away. She was 81 years old.
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