Saying Goodbye

The very next day after I posted my last blog, my Grandma died. Words really can't describe how incredibly difficult this loss has been for me. I might have lived 1100 miles away from her for all of my 28 years, but I had such a close bond with her. I adored both of my grandparents...some of my happiest memories are times we had together. Losing my Grandma is, in a way, the end of an era. The big white house we all love so much will be packed up and sold. I will never eat another of my Grandma's delicious dinners at the table where we shared so many meals together...I will never stay up late talking to her and listening to her stories. I had so much time with her, but I would do anything, for just a little more. Just one more hug, just one more chance to tell her how much I love her, and how much she meant to me.
Losing my Grandma, has opened up wounds I thought I had long since dealt with and moved on from. I've felt the anger and pain of losing my dad all over again. I actually had a flashback to our accident when I was up north for the funeral. I felt just for a second, like I was in the back seat again and the car was airborn...and I was completely helpless and out of control. It's the first time I've felt that so vividly in years. I've felt the anger that of all the ways for my dad to go, it had to be when we were on our way 'home' to his parents. I hate that they were awakened in the middle of the night by an officer informing them their son had been killed in an accident. I hate that instead of eating the fridge full of food my Grandma had prepared and enjoying time with us, they had attend their son's funeral. No parent should ever have to bury their child. All of these thoughts went through my mind when I was up north a couple weeks ago.
I had sworn I wasn't going into my Grandma's house while we were there, but I did. And it ranks up there with some of the most painful, heartbreaking moments of my life. I really thought I would pass out from the pain in my chest as I came in the front door and she wasn't coming up to hug me. The house looked like it always did, smelled like it always did, but she was gone.
Funerals have a way of putting life in perspective. Forgive me for being so morbid, but sitting there looking at my Grandma in the casket, made me think that that's it. We all live, some longer than others, but eventually we all end up in the same place...How hopeless and sad and depressing that is...except that we have hope! Although I doubt, I question, I get angry, I know that I have a glorious hope in Jesus Christ. I have the hope of eternal life with my Savior. This life is not all there is. Death is not the end! I love the verse in I Corinthians that says, "Death has been swallowed up in victory...where O death is your sting?"
My Grandma loved the Lord and served Him with her life...and I have hope that one day I will spend eternity praising my Savior with her, and my Grandpa, and my dad who have gone on before me.