I woke up one morning,  and got ready to go to school. I had to walk to my bus stop, and it was freezing. I call my mom sometimes while I walk to the bus, But before I could call her, she called me. She sounded sad, and I had no idea what was going on. She told me she didn’t want me going to school because grandma was really sick.

 That’s all she would say; she wouldn’t tell me anything else. I was terrified. I ran home and started crying. There had to be more than her just being sick for me to stay home. That day I went to my pappy’s house to spend time with the family. 

My grandma was in the hospital. I think this was day number two of her being there. My pap and aunt were at the hospital, and the rest of us were at home waiting on them. We waited for what felt like hours. Then my aunt called my mom. We are sitting there waiting patiently as she hung up the phone. 

She looks at us and says “if you want you guys can go say your goodbyes, but you don’t have to.” I dropped to the floor. It felt like my heart dropped to my stomach. I started bawling and I couldn’t stop. Everyone was worried about me because of how I was acting. I couldn’t believe this. It can’t be real, I didn’t want it to be real. 

That day, we all went down to the hospital. I still didn’t know if I could go and say goodbye. I sat outside that hospital while everyone else was taking turns going in and seeing her. We were there for hours. After awhile, I decided I was going to go in. I had to see her one last time, even if it was going to be the hardest thing I have ever had to do. 

My mom and I walked up to her room because I didn’t want to do it alone. As I hesitate to walk through the door, I see her laying there. She looked peaceful. She was sweating but she didn’t look like she was in pain. I stood there and talked to her for a bit. 

I made some promises to her that I plan on keeping. It took everything I had not to cry while standing there. She could hear me, but she couldn’t see me or talk to me. I had a tear running down my face.I grabbed her hand and told her that I was going to make her proud. If she would’ve seen me, she would’ve told me to be strong. 

As I walked out of her room and out of the hospital, I just started bawling. It wasn’t supposed to be her. She still had so much to see me accomplish. After we all were done at the hospital, it was time for my aunt and pap to head up there and tell them we were ready to let her go. A couple days went by and we were trying to figure everything out. We decided we wanted her cremated. My aunt and pap went to my uncle for some keepsakes. We all had a little bit of her ashes. 

After all this guess what day it was? Christmas. Who would’ve guessed all this happened within a year? Christmas wasn’t the same, but we all definitely tried to make the best of it. My aunt got engaged, which was good. My grandma helped pick out the ring. She actually kept a secret, which is a big deal because she usually never can. One thing she told the doctor was that she wanted to be home for Christmas. 

Sadly, she didn’t get to be there, but I know she was watching it all. It was all so weird and not something I could get used to. Every holiday is not going to be good at all. It will just be us trying to have fun and not really being able to enjoy any holiday. Dealing with this stuff has been really hard for me. It hasn’t gotten any easier.

We went through everything of hers, and I swear that woman is a hoarder. She just knew how to keep it neat and made sure no one knew. She has bins and bins of just mail, purses, old school stuff from us. It took us like three days to go through everything. 

We had so many laughs going through all the stuff she kept. She was a big Elvis fan; I got a lot of that stuff. I will never know how she kept everything so neat and away where it didn’t look bad. We went through a lot of photo albums. It’s like she took pictures of everything.

We decided to have her a celebration of life, for one last goodbye. We invited everyone we could think of. She knew the whole town it felt like. She could never go somewhere and find someone she didn’t know. So we had a long list of people we wanted to come.

 We planned this weeks in advance so everyone had notice. We planned it for her birthday weekend. My aunt and I made this big board filled with pictures of my grandma and the family. We all had a favorite picture that we wanted on it. I knew if she was here, she would’ve loved the board. 

February 19th came. It was the day for her celebration of life. It was from 4-7 so everyone had time to get to the church. Some of us went to the church a little early so we could set everything up. The church prepared an amazing dinner for everyone.  Some people we invited didn’t show but that’s okay. Grandma had enough people who cared about her there, and that’s all that matters. She would’ve been happy either way. 

I cried many times that day. It just didn’t feel real, I didn’t want it to be real. She is my grandma. She was supposed to be around for a long time. Unfortunately that wasn’t God’s plan.  He wanted her home sooner.

If you are ever missing someone, just listen to songs that make you think of them and just cry as hard as you can. That is one thing that helps me. Sometimes, you just need a good cry, and that’s okay. 

It’s really hard right now, and I pray to God it gets easier. I am still grieving. I can’t help it. I just can’t let her go. She will forever be with me and follow me wherever I go. I do know that for sure.

“Grandma, I love and miss you very much. More than you could ever imagine. I just want you to know that this isn’t goodbye. This is just simply see you later.”