I Met The Love Of My Life And Lost Another In The Same Summer (CO-CA Move Pt 1)

When I first moved out to California on my own in April of 2016, I had a 1998 Toyota Land Cruiser with tons of space that I packed to the brim. I moved the majority of my stuff out of my mom's house in Aspen, Colorado and began on my journey to San Diego.

I started dating this incredible guy who lived in 906 miles away in Temecula, CA. After only 3 months of trying to maintain the agonizing long distance relationship, I decided to take a leap of faith and move out to be closer to him. Luckily, I had my favorite person on earth, my sweet grandmother, who lived in Northern San Diego. So I was able to stay with her as I found a job and began to save up money for my own place. She was the best roommate I had ever had. My grandma, who I called Meme (pronounced meh-meh with a french accent) was the funniest little round french woman you would have ever met. My grandpa passed away a few years ago so she lived alone until I moved out there. She was so happy to have someone around, and I was too. Her favorite thing was to bake and cook and make her children and grandchildren happy.

We always had so much fun together, I loved doing her makeup. I taught her about the "lip liner trick" to overline your lips to make them appear fuller and we cracked up laughing after we took this selfie.

While I was living with her, my boyfriend and I created a stronger bond and we fell in love. For the sake of anonymity and respect I'm going to call him "Sebastian". Sebastian was an artist who sculpted and painted and created the most beautiful art I had ever laid my eyes on. I was not only in love with his heart and his soul, but I was in love with his work and what his was able to create with his hands. I felt like the luckiest person on earth.

In September Meme started not feeling well. A woman who would cook and clean and garden and run a whole household all by herself all of a sudden didn't have the energy to get up out of bed. I took her to the doctors and the doctor ran some tests and took some blood and let us go back home. After a couple weeks we we're told to go back to the doctors to receive the results of the tests. On October 14th were told that my grandma had stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It had spread to the lining of her stomach and chemo wasn't an option. I was in shook, I didn't believe it. She had been fine! How could this have happened to the strongest most wonderful woman I knew?! I called my mom and told her the news and she took the first flight out the following day.

What turned into the most incredible summer of life, all of a sudden came crashing down. I was in full blown denial. She wasn't going to die. There was no way in hell the most important person in my life. The person that both my mother and my father knew I loved the most, could die. Our roommate adventures were just getting started. I wouldn't accept it. The following week my mother and I did everything we could, from strange Mexican remedies to herbal supplements to seeing 10+ pancreatic cancer specialists. Every doctor told us the same: "We caught it too late."

She was hospitalized a few days after because of an abdominal ascites, which was a common symptom pancreatic cancer that caused swelling of infecting liquid in the stomach. After they temporarily removed the fluid, the doctors told us that it would soon come back, and unless you have in-home doctor to remove the ascites every 6-8 hours, the swelling isn't going to subside. Hospice then came and talked to us about in home nurses they could provide, and after lots of uncertainty, denial and tears, we decided that was the best option. The most horrendous 5 days of my life came along with hospice as I watched my idol disintegrate into a medicated zombie before my eyes. I couldn't bare it, selfishly I didn't want to see her like that.

On October 30th I heard screams from my mom downstairs that my grandmother began to throw up "black" liquid. We called the ambulance and I followed along in my car to the hospital. My mom and I decided to sleep in the chairs in her hospital room that night. She passed away the next morning. It was October 31st, halloween, and she was gone. It felt like some sick joke. It still feels like a dream. My mom and I understand each other's pain most because she was both of our favorite person in this world. I can't explain the connection my mother and I had with her, but it wasn't like most mother/daughter relationships. She was our everything.

I wanted to add a little video that I sent to my mom back in July of 2016 a few days before my grandma and I flew out to visit her in Colorado. It kinda is a glimpse into our silly fun relationship. I did some of her makeup and I thought she looked so beautiful!

(You can find part 2 of my journey here)