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Notes -
My grandmother died at the start of the month, after a long year of close brushes with death. I wasn't there for the bitter end - I was in Sydney while she rotted away on the other side of the world, crippled by a tumour she would never get over.
The last time I ever saw her, it was over a call. She wasn't responsive enough to say anything or even give any indications that she was there, and it was disconcerting to see just how unrecognisable she was. The way she looked was halfway between human and mummified corpse. Her eyes were half-open and defocused, and her arm, now shaped like a long, attenuate claw, jerked up and down haphazardly. My family tried to convince me she could still hear and understand; they were almost certainly lying either to me or to themselves, drawing spurious correlations out of random noise so they could hope there was something there.
Even if she could hear me, everything I could say would just have been a pathetic insult. "How are you doing?" Terrible, thanks. "I hope people are taking care of you well." My catheter is uncomfortable, and the nurses won't do anything about it. "I've been pretty good on my end." Fuck off. I ended up telling her about my day, and the last thing I said to her was something laughably trivial and inconsequential, hilariously stupid in hindsight. There was nothing particularly graceful or poignant or even sad about it. I was never close to her - quite the opposite; she had done a good number of ethically questionable or downright repulsive things during her life - but seeing someone I once knew turn into a flesh puppet, flailing around aimlessly on the bed like a poorly rigged 3D model, was profoundly disturbing in a way that's hard to articulate.
Shortly after the call ended, a blackout fell over my apartment building. This had never happened here before, and it was night time so the entire room was blanketed in darkness - all there was to do was sit in the silence and think. Walking out into the corridor presented a scene from a horror movie; the halls of the building were lit with a strange liminal yellow-orange light, and the background hum of the building - which I usually take for granted - had completely died out. It took two or three hours for the power to come back on.
A couple hours after the call and the strange blackout, my grandmother died. It appears her husband took her death extremely badly. He initially seemed in denial about what had happened - he was surprised to realise her body was cold, and refused to let the undertakers take her away, snapping at anyone who tried. For a while he kissed and slept beside her deteriorating corpse, and by the time they managed to pry her away from him she was disintegrating so badly they had to rush out a cremation. Her ashes are now in an urn at the home she once lived.
Ever since then, this has popped up repeatedly in my mind. I'm not even in mourning - I'm more relieved that people can start moving on now, since everyone was being held in stasis for the longest time - rather, it's something else. I've thought about death a lot, but the existential dread of seeing someone wither away like that is really potent, and the weird, coincidental timing of the blackout doesn't help. I certainly won't try to find any meaning in it; that would be doing the same thing my family did when they insisted she could still understand, but this is probably one of the most terrifying coincidences that has happened in my life, and I am still rattled by it despite my agnostic nature.
I don't know if I should even post this, to be honest. If this comment gets deleted later, don't be surprised.
EDIT: Thanks to everyone for sharing their condolences and their experiences with the death of family, it's much appreciated. I don't think I'm going to delete this now, but it did feel strange posting about something so personal on an anonymous online forum.
I'm sorry for your loss.
My Grandfather passed very recently. He lived a long life into his 90's. He just caught a chest infection one day and deteriorated quite quickly in hospital. He eventually just asked the doctors to stop treating him and switch to palliative care. After 3 days he passed away. He wasn't responsive once they switched to palliative care, being in something of a delirium.
My father did not take his passing well. This is partially because it's his last parent going and also because he himself is in hospital for chronic health conditions and couldn't attend the funeral. It was a bit of an existential crisis in the sense that myself and my siblings have realised that our father likely doesn't have many years left in him either.
For myself, I'm glad Grandfather passed relatively quickly without a long drawn out death from something like dementia. He had his faculties up to the end (with just some physical frailties) and was still driving himself around. He lived a good, long life and left behind a successful and loving family. I'd be lucky to follow his example.
I'm reluctant to post this last part because I don't expect anyone to take this seriously. I'm agnostic, but I sensed when my Grandfather passed. I was in a hyperfocused state doomscrolling at the time. I'm normally completely shut off from most of my emotions when I'm doing this, but I sensed a presence so I stopped what I was doing. I made a prayer for my Grandfather to commend him to God. I felt a warmth like a loving hug and knew he was saying goodbye and that he was fine. Then it was gone. Minutes later I got a text that Grandfather had passed 10 minutes ago. So that was a thing.
Like yourself there's a good chance I'll be deleting this one later on.
Edit: I'll keep this one as long as you do mate.
Listen, I'm just a crazy spirit helping out my diety, so my opinion and $6 will get you a nice festive White Peppermint Mocha from Starbucks, but I take your experience as serious as a heart attack and completely believe that it happened to you exactly as you described it. In my own family my paternal grandmother was infamous for her presence in her home after she passed away until my grandfather joined her several years later. Both he and my uncle received occasional guidance from her and at least one direct message, usually when they were looking for something. Sounds woo woo and hokey, right? But how would you feel if you were wondering where that screw was that dropped out of your glasses and a thought came unbidden into your mind and said, "it's in the heel of your shoe!" It blew my grandfather's mind for sure. While I never had a personal experience involving her after her passing, it felt like she was hanging around the house to me, too. In fact, I'd say that her presence was palpable while he still lived. I've had many other personal experiences in my life as well, more than enough to satisfy my own questions about life, death, the afterlife, etc.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go torment some drunken writer/poet...
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