On the verge

It has only been a week since we found out my grandmother's cancer is not treatable. We found out that it will probably be fast. That the cancer has spread through out her body.

I haven't slept much since. I spend half the night composing a meaningful eulogy for her funeral, and the other half realizing I don't know my grandma as much as I thought I did. She has almost 50 grandchildren who have lived in the same town as her, and who have visited her more often, and who know her better than I. This is when I start to cry.

What's bothering more than my grandmother's illness, is my mother's inability to handle the news. This isn't her mother that's dying, it's my father's. She's also a hospice nurse and has worked with the elderly and dying for 35 years. She is freaking out. I don't think I've ever seen my mother this worked up. She was more composed when her mother died, than she is now.

I think she is less worried about grandma's illness and impending death than she is the aftermath. My dad comes from a large family, and there will be... squabbling. It won't be pretty, but I don't think it will be the end of the world, either. But the anticipation of it is stressful.

As a daughter, I don't know how to help my mother. As a newly trained hospice employee, I don't know how to help the expierenced nurse.

I don't know what to do.