The Keller Chronicles: Celebrating a Wonderful Life. . .

Grandma Marie

As many of you are probably already aware, my maternal grandmother, Marie Roegler passed away on June 28. Her death was not a shock as she had been in a nursing home for over 10 years as a result of multiple strokes, and she had developed congestive heart failure within the last year.

It was difficult to know how to cope with a loss that had been ongoing since Grandma had had her first series of TIA strokes back in 1996. It was at that time that the Grandma that I knew and loved so well ceased to be herself anymore. And so, over the last several years, I, along with Momma, Daddy, and the rest of the family, struggled to reconcile the loss of the person we knew with the shell of the person who was left.

At first, I felt so much guilt because I thought that I should have done a better job trying to make trips out to see Grandma in Illinois. It seemed that every time I went to visit her at the nursing home, though, she was less and less the person I remembered. And then, after she died, I felt guilty for not being able to recall all of the wonderful, funny memories of her. This realization felt like a double loss because not only had I lived for over 10 years without the person I remembered, but I could no longer remember her as she used to be before she became ill.

It was a fortunate thing that Grandma wanted to be cremated because it not only allowed all of her family to have the luxury of being able to plan and make it to her funeral but also to have some time to process what had happened. Gradually, memories of Grandma started to come back to me: her laugh, her ability to tell stories and jokes, how she loved to go out dancing at the VFW with her girlfriends, how we'd play side-by-side at her upright piano and sing, how she loved the John Wayne birthday weekend on AMC, how she taught me to sew, the delicious food she'd cook (coleslaw, fried potatoes and chicken, and apple pie).

What I learned was that I am grieving more over the fact that Grandma suffered for so long in a body that would not let her be herself and do what she wanted at the end of her life than that she is gone from us. Now, for the first time in a long time, I feel the presence of Grandma as I remember her from before she was sick, and I know that she is whole, well, and happy wherever she is. It is a comfort to have her with me after having felt her loss for so long.

I've posted some pictures of friends and family who attended Grandma's funeral. It was Grandma's wish that after the funeral we would get together for a meal, so we met in the banquet room at Alongi's in Du Quoin and ate, drank, and celebrated her life and each other. I feel certain that Grandma was pleased to see her family come from every corner of the country to be together and remember her.