"im not dead yet"

its aug 31st. its the 1st day of school at sdsu for most. not me. kinda weird for me to say that. i guess it finally hit me that i graduated and didnt have to go back..

..i woke up a lil before noon. and just...laid in bed, thinking...the past weekend was on my mind..

..my bro, matt, had recently lost his grandmother. us among others did some questionable things this past weekend that kinda shined a light on some things that were put in the dark and forgotten for the most part. he said he had lost her, didnt really get to know her or spend time with her. regretted it. ive been thru that. i was much younger at the time, and lookin back on it, i think my grandma on my dad's side woulda been more lively or stayed alive or wanted to stay alive longer than she actually did. theres somethin about just bein around and interacting with family or just those u love that adds years to a lifetime..

so.

i call up my parents who r back in SD from AZ.. and ask em if theyve eaten yet and offer to take em out. haha.. my dad is who picked up the phone, and u know wat he says?...hes like, "are you ok, son?""r u gonna pay for us?!?!""wheres this coming from?""i mean, i wanna give u a hug right now!". haha! yeah.. i guess it is a lil outta the ordinary, so the reaction was somewhat expected...i guess thats wat i woulda said too, haha.

they pick me up and we go eat in natl city, some good ol filipino food at conching's. love it, haha. and my mom, bein the social butterfly she is who seems to know almost every other fuckin filipino mom in SD, haha, knew the lady at conchings. so she hooked it up with hella extra food servings than usual. thanks mom, and ur friend, who somewhat recognized me!, haha. we eat and talk. it felt like i was a kid again eating with my parents when my mom started cutting up the fish and sifting thru it to take out the little bones in em so i didnt have to do it. then my dad said to my mom, "your such a mom, but im not saying its a bad thing". haha. true. shes always tryin to do everything for her kids, even the smallest shit. love it. and i appreciate it more than ever.

then i ask if they can go take me to go visit my grandma (my mom's mom). they were like sure. so turns out..she lives near the movie theatres in hillcrest. crazy.. id see that place before but it meant nothing before, haha..

we go in. kinda freaky cuz its like a mad house in there.. the old ppl are walkin around and sayin some random ass crazy shit while staring you in the face. feels like theyre gonna flip out on u at any moments notice. we ask for my grandma rosalina bulanadi. and one of the nurses asks my mom for approval for a CT scan on my grandma to look for signs of dementia and memory problems because of the things shes been sayin and stuff. great.

so..we find the room and my mom is tryin to see if she would remember us. yeah.. nope. it was ABSOLUTELY HORRIBLE. seeing a family member not remember u. it felt like the scenes in 'the notebook' where Allie could just not remember Noah...

my parents kept tryin to get her to remember and slowly...with little snippets of memories, slowly trickled in. she would like go in and out of memories. jumbling and fusing the past and present memories between each other. at one point. she got really emotional. she was telling us bout how it was goin here at the nursing home cuz my mom asked if she was doin ok here...

my grandma started tearing up, saying it sucks here and that shes not feeling good. and my mom was like, wats the problem? and rosie goes, "icao!"(sp? ,my tagalog is horrible but i believe that means 'you'). she was like, "im so lonely here, u dont visit anymore, u only call sometimes, its like...its like...you forgot about me." damn... i was kneeling down next to her bed, and i was looking at her eyes. i saw how she was feeling. i saw her eyes starting water. this rush of emotion filled my chest and eyes as well. i guess it was part guilt and remembrance of wat ive been throughout my college career, and remembering how many times i would think about her, and NOT go to actually visit her, and thinking about how my grandma on my dad's side went thru the SAME thing, and realizing, that im DOING THE SAME THING with her too. i started balling my eyes out. i tried holding it back, i couldnt. i stood up, i turned my back and i started crying my eyes out. my dad came over and i started crying on his chest. i dont remember the last time i cried in front of parents while they were tryin to console me...

... then... my grandma, like the grandma of old, and like mind set that she passed on to my mom, goes on and says to me, "why are you crying? stop crying...im not dead yet". haha, thats what id say if i was her. thats exactly wat my mom would say too. she tells me to come over and give her a hug. so i do. i sit by her and embrace her hands and arms.

we talk to her. at the start i can see wat the nurse was saying bout her memory and dementia. she would confuse memories from the early past when she was raising her 3 kids in the philippines with the memories of a few years ago when she was living on her own in an apartment and working at an elementary school. she would combine then as if they happened yesterday. but correcting her and talking to her. she would slowly gain back her memory. just like in 'the notebook' reminding her of the past brought her back. she would come back for a lil bit, then leave again and say somethin from her past. or she would confuse the nurses for her kids. but her memory and mind was still there. she was able to eventually remember me, and my dad, and my mom. and she was able to rememmber the month and day of the birthdates of her 3 kids without any help. it was both amazing and thrilling but at the same time sad, to see your grandma be like that. but there was good that came out of it. one of the things she said to me and repeated saying was, "thank you, you made me so happy today to see all of you, you really made my day, im so happy right now". =) man. theres so much to say bout it all but ima stop for now. her birthday is on sept 4. shes gonna be 81. ill see ya there on friday grandma. love u.

then. there was traffic goin back south. so i decided to go to sycuan with my parents to play bingo. spend more time with em. didnt win, but i made back my money playing blackjack. woohoo! haha. my mom won like 50 bucks too. they took me home after that.

today was a good day.