Missing You

I was so anxious to come home to California. I missed my family and my friends. I would have given anything to be here. Now that I'm here for my Grandma Estela's funeral I feel like the price was too high. The reason to come back has left me so raw and hurt. Everything here that I was looking forward to doing seems to be masked by an underlying current of sadness.  I miss my grandma, I miss going downstairs and seeing her in the hospital bed watching tv. I miss talking to her and putting Gabi into the bed to sit beside her.  We've been doing a lot of planning for her services and it seems like all these decisions are harder because it's not what you want it's what she would have wanted. You must cast yourselves back to remember what she was like, not in the years of illness but in the years of good times and laughter. Once those memories come the pain that there will never be those times again seems overwhelming. Thankfully she lived a very full life, 97 years on this planet. She's seen world wars, the fall of communism, her family grow and blossom. She's seen our successes and our failures; experienced our highs and lows.  Through my whole life she's always been there, and now at a time I feel I need her tender smile and loving touch I've been abandoned. I know she is in a better place reconnecting with her loved ones that have gone before her to make her place. I'm sure she is rejoicing for the end of pain and the beginning of a new journey in heaven. I hope she is looking down and is pleased with the arrangements. I hope she knows that we will be fine, she's given us the tools to be understanding of death and the confidence that she will be in heaven. I loved her so much and I'll miss her.