Six Years

Six years ago today, my grandma lost her battle with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease. On that very same day, she was completely healed and began her life in eternity.

Having just begun my second semester of college, I wasn't living full-time in Sarasota anymore. I had come home for the weekend and my family and I were by my grandma's side as we were quite sure she was nearing the end of her daily struggle with this nasty disease. I remember going into her bedroom before I headed back to college that Sunday night. I was with my brother and two cousins. I remember talking to her and rubbing her back while she listened. She had lost her ability to talk months before. She finally waved me "off" as she needed to go to sleep again and I also think she struggled seeing all of us so upset. That was the last moment I spent with her.

At that time, I didn't expect her death to come so soon, as in the next day. Looking back, I wished I would have just taken the absences from my classes and stayed in Sarasota so that I could have been there with my family. That next afternoon, I had just walked into my dorm and got the call from my mom, crying and telling me that she had gone peacefully. My head hit my desk as I sobbed. My roommate, Tressie, came in and immediately knew. I packed my bags and she drove me home. So thankful to have a good friend do that for me!

I remember walking in to my grandma's house, seeing all of my family worn out from crying. We knew her death was coming, but the reality of it is indescribable. Looking at my grandpa was heartbreaking. Seeing my mom go through her deceased mother's purse was weird.

ALS wrecked my grandma's life. It's wrecked many others' lives, too. It's incurable, at the moment. My grandma, at only 69, had completely lost her ability to talk and eat. She was on a feeding tube and used a typing/talking machine to communicate. I just hate it. I hate that that's the way she had to leave us, and hate that she had to suffer like that for longer than anyone should have to.

But, she's been made new, for six years now. I'm thankful for that. I'm also extremely thankful that when I die, I've been promised Heaven and I'll get to see her and my grandpa again. I miss them terribly. I know that if my grandma were still here, she'd make trips up to volunteer in my classroom and help me organize it, like she was so good at doing. She would come up to Lakeland to visit me and go shopping with me. She'd call me on the phone to check and see how I was doing and to make sure I was eating enough. :)

She was the best. She was "Mamie" to me. And what an amazing "Mamie" she was! I love and miss her SO much!