December 6th, 2018

It snowed the day my grandma died: December 6th, 2018.

It was the worst week of my entire life.

My grandma was one of my favorite people in the entire world. 

We were blessed to be very close with her and my grandpa, and would see them many times a year. 

In the 16 years I've known her, I have never seen her put herself above anybody. Not even once. 


She was always a huge supporter of my writing and of this blog. 

Of course I don't know for sure, but I'd believe she read every post.

At the very least, she read every one she could, and I hold that close.

She came to every show of mine unless she or my grandpa were in the hospital.

In fact, when she was lying in a hospital bed on Thanksgiving, having just undergone what would turn out to be a life-threatening head injury, one of the last things she said to my parents before she slipped into the three-day coma preceding her death was: "I'm so sorry. I don't think we'll be able to make it up to Jaléna's play."

I had a play 24 hours after she died.

A play she should have been at.

Nobody really thinks too much of it when you tell them you just lost a grandparent, because usually that's associated with someone who is old and distant; but I'd say that goodbye and that production were the hardest things I have ever done. 

She had a servant's heart through and through.

Whenever anybody needed anything (especially if it involved cooking) she would be the first to volunteer to help. Even when age started to slow her down, she never let anything get in the way of meeting somebody's needs. She would hobble over to you if she had to. 

In fact, my grandma literally died serving people. 

She was making the Thanksgiving turkey for her kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids who were all coming over the next day. She went to put the broth away, we think some of it splashed out on the floor, she slipped on it, and fell backwards, hitting her head hard in all the wrong places and ending up on the kitchen floor with multiple subdural hematomas.


Thousands of lives were touched because of my grandma and grandpa.
They were married 65 years, and loved each other more and more every day.
Those images of my grandpa watching them bury the woman who lit up his life for almost 7 decades will forever be burned in my mind. 
I pray every day for a relationship like theirs. 


It's been eight days now since I got the news nobody ever wants to receive; yet the pain remains. 
And I know it will for the rest of my life.
I have hope it'll get easier to handle as time goes on, but I will miss her until the day we're reunited.


I guess that pain when you lose someone is the price of love.  
It hurts like I don't even know how to begin to describe, but if that means I loved...
I'd much rather feel intensely than not at all. 







I love you, grandma.