Unfortunately, I am no longer a caregiver, just a granddaughter who misses her grandmother dearly, and someone who wants to share her story.

I have recently gotten some comments on questions i had while my grandmother was still with me. She passed on Jan. 10, 2023 at 3:35pm. The last time she spoke was about a week prior. I was talking about random things, and at the end i said “i love you”. Her eyes lit up and she said “oh i love you too”. I had wondered if she was understanding me, or if my miscellaneous tangent was in vain, but indeed she was listening :) In her last days, it was hard for me to tell when she was awake or asleep, and i do admit i spent less time with her as i did cleaning the house and such. I regret it immensely. I wish i had spent every moment holding her hand, talking about memories we shared, singing our special song, but for some reason all of these thoughts just escaped me when i was sitting with her. All i could think was how sorry i felt that the woman who i had so many years with, couldn’t speak or close her own eyelids. I would swab her mouth with lemon swabs dipped in ice water, comb her hair and massage her hands with lotion. I really couldn’t find much to talk about, so i sat with her and watched tv and held her hand. One of the last movies we watched was Burlesque, which she showed me and what began my love of Cher, which we shared. She lived with untreated breast cancer for nine years. Her nurse said that was one of the longest journeys she had come across, as it didn’t physically affect her until three months before her death with weight loss and a limp as it spread to her bones. The nurse also mentioned that she was the only cancer patient she had seen (who had it so long) whose cancerous areas hadn’t opened up to sores. This was due to her constant lotioning and application of vaseline. My grandmother also introduced me to putting on lotion after every shower, which inspired a love of skin care to me. Her nurses said they tell their other patients to apply vaseline to their affected areas. My grandmother’s name was Lillian Kelly Sims, the only difference in our names being the middle. She loved to decorate, and made every house she moved into a beautiful creation of her own. She took meticulous care of all her possessions, wiping the hotplate of her coffee pot every time she poured a cup, keeping it from rusting. She and my grandfather owned a pipeline company called “Maverick Pipeline Services Inc.” They made so much merchandise with the name and label printed on it such as letter openers, coffee mugs and notebooks. I am lucky enough to have at least one of each of these. My grandfather always told her (based on a song i believe) that he would love her forever and a day. My grandfather would drive seven hours to come pick me up just so i could see my granny for a weekend. When i was young, she would sit in the backseat with me because i couldn’t stand to be out of her arm’s reach. When i got too big to be picked up by her, she had told me one day that she didn’t have the confidence to pick me up, and i told her she could borrow some of mine. She loved to tell that story. She and my papaw had a mizpah coin, with their names on one side and on the other, a verse something along the lines of “the Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent one from another.” My papaw was buried with his half, and i will wear her half until she is buried with him. From the time i was two weeks old, she called me “girlfriend”. Many of my family members didn’t even know my real name. The day she passed, she could not speak. I read her a religious joke that she got in the mail. I didn’t know she was about to leave, but her eyes began to water, she blinked and turned her head towards her doorway. I told her that i loved her, that i would be okay and that if papaw was here, she should go with him, because he was going to take her somewhere nice. Within five minutes, i watched her take her last breath. I am so proud now to have my grandmother’s name. I got to spend her birthday, Christmas and New Years with her. I will miss her forever and a day.