--speechless--

Yesterday I lost my great grandmother, my Meemau. She passed away around 10 o'clock yesterday morning as we were beginning our Big Event service yesterday. I am thankful that I did not glance back at my dad for him to give me the news during the service. I was spared that until right after it was over. He came and told me "Meem is gone" How can it be? How can she be gone. It's not possible. She was going to live forever. I mean she was 93--just turned it on Saturday. She was a glue-like substance that held part of our family together. Sure she was stubborn and had very different opinions that did not meld with my own, but I loved her. So much. She was the only real grandmother I ever knew. Both of my parents mothers died when I was one. They died two weeks apart. When my mom's mom died, I was in the hospital with croup. Then two weeks later my dad's mom had a heart attack--or some type of aortic aneurysm. Both of my grandfathers remarried, but those two women have never matched up to what I knew a grandmother was or had been told my grandmothers were like. My Meemau became my grandmother. Most people leave out the "great" part because most people do not know their great-grandmothers, but that's ok because she really was like a grandmother to me. I have so many memories of my Meemau going all the way back to my earliest memories. I have memories of my Meemau taking care of me when I was little when my parents went out to dinner or had other things going on. She and I would play. There's a story about me and Meemau playing in her kitchen. I was about 2 and Meemau was being "punished". She was sitting on the stool in her kitchen in the corner while I was sitting in my little rocking chair singing songs that I had made up. She always remembered when I would play office. I had my special place in her old coffee table where she had pens, papers, and the postcards torn out of magazines. I turned her living room into my own personal office where I would deal with all my important "paperwork". She croqueted something for everyone. Everytime a baby was born, she made afghans. I have two that she has made me. One is a very light green color that has very soft yarn. That was made for me when I was born. Then I have another one that is larger that is pink and white. I got that when I was older because my favorite color was pink. She also made me a blue scarf a few years ago. These are some things that I will never get rid of because everytime I use them I will remember her. I have so many more memories. We laughed so much and love was something I never questioned. I am going to miss her so much. I am going to miss going to her house. I'm going to miss going up to her back door and seeing her working in the kitchen waiting for us to get there so we could all eat dinner together. Dinner was always late. For some reason, that was always a homey thing for me. I will always remember her mauve colored dining room, the red carpet in the foyer leading up the rounding staircase that have the very steep and narrow steps to the upstairs. I will always remember the shag brown and orange carpet in her basement and the monkey that lived in her bathroom downstairs. [A picture of a monkey over the toilet...lol] I will never forget the smell of Meemau's laundry. I will never forget how comforting and welcoming her 10 foot long blue couch was in the living room or the toy drawer in the kitchen. So many memories of the huge Christmas trees that we thought would fall over because they were so big...or the Easter egg hunts in the backyard with the 8 bazillion cousins or the fact that people had to eat on the back porch, the living room, and with an extended table that reached into the foyer from the dining room. We will never forget how hard it was to get certain channels because Meemau didn't have cable, she only just got it a couple months ago thanks to the coaxing of my dad. Her home was a home full of love. A love that accepted you for who you were...even though there were disagreements between some. She still loved you for who you were, no matter your choice of religion, sexual preference, or political party. She loved her animals too. She use to have poodles when I was younger. I will always remember Buddy and Pepper. She would not feed them dog food. They would get different things like baby food chicken, corn flakes, green beans, and rice. I also use to tease Buddy by lifting up the mail-slot on the front door. He would always bark and I would get reprimanded. I remember spending a week with her one summer after we moved to North Carolina and her being very concerned about me wearing sunglasses when we would go outside. I didn't have a pair with me, so I had to wear a huge pair that you would wear over your glasses. Oh fashion statement. But she didn't care, she just wanted to make sure my eyes were protected. She loved me so much. I can't believe she is actually gone. The last time I saw her was about two weeks ago. She was in the hospital and we knew it would not be much longer. I didn't want to come to terms with that fact then. I hate hospitals. I really do. They feel so impersonal. I hated seeing her in a hospital bed refusing to eat and not being able to hug her or kiss her because she had contracted MRSA a year and a half ago and it had flared back up. I hated that we could not understand what she was saying most of the time. That was not the Meemau I knew. She was always able to speak what was on her mind very clearly. She was in so much pain and she was so tired. She was ready to die. Even though she seemed to fight it as hard as she could...she knew it was time. She had seen death's door so many times in the past 15ish years that she knew this was it. The fighting was over. My only hope is that her heart was softened and she came to know Jesus as her personal Lord and Savior. Of all the things, that grieves me the most. She said she was a Christian, but saying it does not mean it is true. It is about a life change. A relationship. I just pray that in her way, she was saved. Her relationship through her praying and Bible reading...which I know would be the perfect way to have the Truth revealed to her in a very living way. But I will not know until I get to heaven if she truly did have that heart change. Oh, how I wish I knew. That would make this whole grieving process so much easier for me. It's hard to lose the people we love, but the hope that we have knowing that those who are saved will be with our Father in heaven gives us great joy and peace. But those who are not, I just don't even want to think about the eternal suffering of hell. Even though we all deserve death and hell. God gave Jesus to us to cancel the debt we all owe. He made a way to heaven. He is the way, the truth, and the life. He is THE way, the ONLY way. I only hope that my heart and life will be changed to be more reflective of the peace I have in my soul. I don't want to see another loved one die without knowing where they stand. When I go to my Meemau's funeral on Wednesday, there will be no peace in my heart. My heart is so conflicted. It is tearing apart with the not knowing. I have asked God to somehow reveal to me that she was. I just need peace. I know it was never in my control, but how can I go on without knowing if she's resting safely in His arms forever? I know I have to trust in God's will. But it is so incredibly hard. I have not really felt the reality of her being gone. Because I have not seen her lifeless body or seen her casket lowered into her grave. I was upset at first when I heard she was gone. I went to my mom and cried. But since then I had not cried until now. As I write this and reflect on different things. I also had someone who I thought was a close friend do something very insensitive and I am hurt and I just want to scream at them and hit them for not being aware of the pain that I'm in and what I've been going through the past couple of weeks since seeing my Meemau alive for the last time. Everyday has been spent waiting not knowing if we were going to get the dreaded phone call letting us know that she was gone. My stomach had been in knots for the past week. Now, I'm dealing with her death and the finality that she is gone. Then my friend did this. They knew that she had been really sick. She's been in and out of the hospital over the past two years and I had constantly been asking prayer for her. They also knew that my family was unsure of her salvation. It just really hurts me that they were so insensitive. I just don't know what to think. I know that it was not meant to cause me any hurt, but it sure did strike a very raw cord in me. People are so lame. That's the only word I can think of right now. We are all stupid and insensitive beings. We only look out for number one. I don't care how unselfish someone is, they are still in the end looking out for themselves. It's how we are as people. We do not know another person's heart. We can only know what we observe and hear them testify about themselves. That does not mean it's the truth. That does not make them pretty either. We are all such low, dirty, rotten, crooked deep down to the core people. I know I am not perfect. I know my Meemau was not perfect. But somehow we can love people...even if it is not entirely unconditional in the way that true love is. I'm sorry I have rambled on. I'm just trying to somehow sort out my feelings and get out some of the things that are inside me. I'm ready for Jesus to come back now. Sometimes life just gets too hard. I'm ready now.


Some days I need a punching bag, and a very large field. The punching bag to take out my anger and aggression, and the field to scream at the top of my lungs in. Some days you just need to do those things. This is one of those days.


But I don't have those things, and I am left with my hurting and broken heart. I'm going to miss my Meemau so much. This is going to be a hard next couple of days. Please pray for me if you are reading this. Pray that God will give me the strength to get through and to have peace...even if I will not know the answer to my burning question until the day I get to heaven.