Loss

I've been talking to my mom everyday. Wondering what the lastest update on my grandma is. Waiting is hard for me. I'm a planner. So when she called on Thursday to say that it could be minutes or hours, I bought my plane ticket and flew to Florida on the same day. I felt better just to have a purpose and to be together with the people who knew and loved my amazing grandmother.

She held on longer than we expected. She was always stronger than she looked. A little lady who walked on glaciers and the Great Wall of China. Who rode the log flume just four years ago with Kirk. Who lived through the depression, two hard marriages, and who lived her unfulfilled dreams through her children and grandchildren. Who made us many blankets and dresses and nightgowns, and poured her creativity and love into every gift she gave. She died around noon on Friday. I didn't go to see her, I said my goodbye at Christmas. I didn't want to remember her in pain. The woman that she had shrunk to, who could no longer speak, walk or eat was not my grandma. She's been leaving us for years. She was still a wonderful woman, but she was disappearing.

When we left the viewing tonight and I looked at my grandma for the last time on this earth, it was hard to walk away. This is not how it should be. It's wrong to leave a woman alone who would have so loved to be with all of us. Who would want to laugh and joke and play with us.

Tomorrow is the memorial service. Tuesday I go back home and my mom and aunt go to Lincoln to bury my grandma with her parents, her younger brother, and her niece. It's good to know she's at peace. When I see her again she will be herself, not the shadow. And I'll miss her until then.