Maybe not the last story.
My granny died in '88, January of '88.
The last five years of her life were spent in the living room in a recliner on oxygen.
It was my responsibility before school and after school to see that her bedpan was emptied, her oxygen was going alright, she had her meds, and she was fed. That is in addition to going to school, schoolwork, keeping the house cleaned, and having meals cooked.
She was bedridden but not terminal; her death was a shock. The doctor gave her medication she was allergic to, and it killed her.
Poor white trash keeps their mouths shut, so we didn't say anything; we agreed that her emphysema killed her and left it at that.
She had rings that she never took off, and we buried her with those rings. The funeral home made us sign a waiver before they locked her coffin, saying those rings were on her fingers.
We come home from the cemetery, and something catches my aunt's eyes, and it's Granny's rings—rings we had just sealed shut in a coffin supposedly buried under ten feet of dirt.
They were just calmly sitting on the mantle in front of the clock, like she'd left them there for us.
They stayed there—no one would touch them.
They stayed until my mom died in '08, and my aunt and uncle sold everything out of the house. I found them in my mom's lock box when I picked up her stuff.
I assume they're still there—I'm not going to go looking though; I have all of Mom's things locked up.
My grandmother had a gutted floor radio from the 40's. When I say gutted, I mean it was a shell, nothing inside it, no electricity, no wires—empty.
That radio randomly would play Granny's favorite hymns for almost a week after she died, and then it went silent.
My grandmother had a bell she would ring when she needed something. We still hear that dang bell, what? Thirty-some years later, the bell is long gone, and it's still ringing.
My uncle was cleaning out the bathtub one day, and out of the clear blue sky he hears “June June Bug” in a tone of voice only mothers can do when you're doing something wrong.
