Tuesday, May 16, 2017

This date always sneaks up on me. I feel like I am always taken off guard every time May 16th comes back around. Maybe because it is a hard day to think about, or maybe because it's hard to believe another year has passed since that night the phone rang and my sister was on the other end telling me that my Grandma was now safely in the arms of Jesus. Thirteen years has passed since that night, but the ache in my heart feels like it could of happened yesterday. I remember after I hung up the phone I crawled back in bed, tears flowing, trying to figure out how to live in a world where my Grandma was no longer living in it. She had been sick for a while. The four years before she passed she had been slowly leaving us. I remember the night I got the phone call and thinking that I had already missed her so much.She had dwindled down to a skeleton of a woman and it was hard to visit her and see how skinny our once plump Grandma had become, but I am so thankful that I continued to go back time and time again to sit in that family room that held so many memories and hold her hand in mine. I think about her every single day. So much in my life reminds me of her. Just looking outside at the flowers, birds, and butterflies reminds me of her and it makes me smile. I wouldn't want to bring her back to the messed up world, but I sure do miss those days of pulling up in their driveway and knowing that if it was day time she would be out tending her rose bushes, if at night she and Pawpaw would be sitting in the family room (her on the couch, him in his chair, both asleep of course). I miss those days of sitting in the living room on the scratchy orange flowered couches and Grandma telling us the same stories we had heard a thousand times before but those stories still made us laugh. I miss her laugh and her advice (even advice we didn't ask for). I miss her stories and poems. I wrote a more detailed blog about my Grandma's life a few years ago and can be read here if you want to know more about her. I miss her every day, but today it hurts just a little more than the other days.