The Holidays

I have been trying to post this for a few days but was just not able to do it until now. The last post that I posted I was talking about being sad. Maybe my heart knew what was going to happen. Who knows! Now I just can't stop being so sad! My sweet grandma passed away unexpectedly on Saturday. She was the absolute best grandmother ever! She was the backbone of our family. Although our family was slowly drifting apart, her death has brought us back together. All she wanted these last few months was for us to be a big, happy family. That's all she wanted. It happened Saturday. While we were waiting at the hospital for the news, we couldn't stop loving each other.

Let me start at the beginning. My brother and his family were going out of town for Thanksgiving and usually my mom is the one that dogsits for them. She was going to stay at his house while they were gone but since my grandma had been placed on bedrest earlier in the week, my brother asked her to stay at my grandma's house to help her out and to watch the dog. My grandma was on bedrest because she had a fractured pelvis. My mom was happy to help but little did we know that something would go horribly wrong. I went to grandma's house on Wednesday so that I could drop my mom off. I didn't take the kids because B was not feeling good and I didn't want to get grandma sick! She looked so cute sitting there in the bed! She had that look on her face....the look that she always had when she didn't want to do something that her doctor had told her to do. You see, she was a nurse and didn't like being told what to do by doctors! She was so stubborn! Little did I know, this was the last time I was going to see her. Had I known that, I would have gotten under the covers with her and hugged her just a little bit longer. I would have kissed her again. I would have squeezed her a little tighter and told her how much she really meant to me. You see, we usually get together as a family at grandma's house for Thanksgiving, but this year, we didn't. We all had other plans. Mario's grandparents came in but left before we could have our Thanksgiving dinner, my brother and his family went out of town and my sister and her family were with her husbands family....Gosh, I wish we would have known!

I had my mom take some food to grandma so that she would have Thanksgiving dinner and so grandma called me on Friday and thanked me for sending some food and told me that she would eat it later that night because she had been sick all night the night before probably with a 24 hour bug and she was feeeling a lot better. That was the last time I talked to her...by the way, she never ate my food. :-) She didn't eat it on Friday like she said that she would! We were cleaning out her refrigerator to make room for all of the food that people were bringing and I threw it away. It made me sad!

On Saturday morning, I got up and got ready to go to Hobby Lobby with Beth. I didn't really want to go but I told her that I would and she didn't believe me! I was determined to prove her wrong. We left my house at about 12:30. We walked into Hobby Lobby and I realized that I had left my cell phone at home. Oh well, Beth had hers just incase Mario wanted to get a hold of me! We were starting to walk toward the back of the store when Mario called me and said that we needed to get over to grandmas house. He said that my mom had just called screaming something into the phone about her mom. We ran. Ran to the car. I was shaking so bad. I started praying that God would help her and not take her. I didn't know anything about what I was about to walk into. I didn't know what to expect when I got there. All I could think about was mom. We got there and as we were running into the house I could hear the sirens in the distance. I think they were just down the block. My uncle and aunt were there and as soon as we walked in to grandmas bedroom, I saw her legs laying there. Still, not moving. Mom was screaming for her mom and I just took her in my arms and held her. Beth was asked to help my uncle with the CPR. She went in there and did the best that she could have done. I can't imagine having to do CPR on my own grandmother. She was so brave. I am so proud of her. My uncle was brave too. He is a firefighter and has had to do this many times, but not to his mother. It was personal this time. He still did the best that he could have done. The ambulance arrived and they took over. They had been doing CPR for what seemed like an eternity. I don't think I will ever forget seeing them work on my grandmother as they were pushing her out the door on that gurney. It was scary!

We all gathered at the hospital and waited for the dr. He came in just a few short minutes later and said that they had lost her. Shock. Complete shock. My grandmother can't be gone! She is the strongest woman I know! But she was. They took us to a room in the back of the ER where we could say goodbye. I know that she was not there. She was not in that body. She was in heaven, worshiping at Jesus' feet. I touched her hands one last time. I will never forget my grandma's hands. They were so soft and I had this fettish with her hands. Amy always laughed at me and told me I was weird but I loved her hands. I sure am going to miss them!

It's sad, but there was one good thing that came from grandma's death. Our family loves each other again. Even if it is just temporary, which I hope that it is not, we put aside our differences for grandma, something that she has wanted us to do for a quite some time now, and just loved on each other.

I think grandma is smiling down on us!