Quinn Tribolet Chiles Humanities AM 10/3/16 Between Two Worlds
In November 2012 at my last soccer game I found out my grandma was in a coma my parents let me choose between going to Tucson to be with her or go to Lake Tahoe for Thanksgiving, I chose to go to Lake Tahoe with my mom’s side of the family. That decision still haunts me to this day. Because when my dad got back he told me that when he went to visit her, he talked to her and he said she woke up and looked around, he thinks it was because she was looking for me. We had that kind of a relationship. Whenever I visited her we read, I helped her with house chores, and I made fudge and breakfast with her all the time. But two days before Thanksgiving I found out she passed away. It was hard for me because we had a REALLY close relationship, and it didn’t help that my cousins weren’t being sympathetic to this. Every year we put on a play for the adults, this year it was some mermaid play. My cousin, Mary and I played two mermaids and my other cousin, Moya who wrote the play was of course the main character. Mary decided to count our lines and bragged about how she had two more lines than me, which in my delicate state of about to lose one of the most important people in my life, took this really hard, harder than I should’ve, and I got really upset and started to cry. But it was understandable, seeing as how my grandma had just passed away, and this was one of the cases where my sister actually stood up for me and told her to stop making me feel bad during this very hard time. I honestly think I should've gone with my dad to Tucson, I regretted my decision. During Christmas we went to Tucson, to say goodbye to my grandma and get my Aunt packed.
We went to Tucson Arizona for Christmas so we could pack all of her stuff up and get my great aunt Georgia moved to a retirement home. They didn’t live together but my Aunt had alzheimer's so she couldn’t take care of herself and my grandma left her a lot of money so she could get the help she needed. I went with my Dad, Uncle, and Mom to pack Georgia up everyday while my sister stayed at my grandma’s house all day, and while I was there I played with Gigi, although my version of playing with a skittish dog was chasing her around the house. In my grandma’s will she had people sign up for what they wanted, but she had a bunch on jewelry, my Dad said that we each get to choose three pieces of jewelry of hers that we wanted, I chose a necklace (the necklace I always where), a sorority pin that was my grandma’s, and another necklace that was shaped like an egg with a little chick in it.
My grandma also put in her will she wanted to be cremated and she wanted us to put her ashes somewhere in Tucson so my parents, sister, Aunt Linda, Uncle Chuck and I drove down East Broadway for a while and when we got to a trail we pulled over and hiked for about ¼ mile, We put her ashes near 6 cacti, 2 bigger ones (which we think represent my grandparents) and 4 little ones (My 3 uncles and dad). We scattered her ashes around the cacti. When we were done we picked up my Aunt Georgia from her house and went out to Casa Molina, it was my grandma’s favorite restaurant. My sister had a volleyball tournament so my mom and sister left a couple days later. My dad and I stayed back to help Georgia move into her new place.
Georgia’s new place didn’t allow dogs as big as Gigi, Georgia’s dog, she was a Labrador Retriever mutt, so we took her to the Tucson Humane Society but during one of the tests to see if she was socialized Gigi didn’t do very well which meant they couldn't take her. So we made the decision to take her home with us. After my dad and I finished unpacking Georgia at her new home we said goodbye and headed back to San Diego. I sat in the back seat with Gigi. Over the course of the six hours being in the car with her we bonded, (even though I chased her around Georgia’s house) when we got home I was the only one she trusted since my sister hated being at Georgia’s house and never really met or bonded with her until she came home with us, she know my mom very well, and she didn’t trust men at all. So for the first week of Gigi being with us, I had to sleep in the downstairs bathroom with her because she wasn't allowed upstairs and we didn’t have a crate. It was quite uncomfortable and she stepped on me every morning and woke me up. Having Gigi was one of the greatest experiences of my life, and losing her was really hard for me.