Day 311 Question 311:

Who is someone that you miss a lot?

I would like to say I think about my grandmother everyday but I don’t.  She does pass through my mind a lot though…during those times of personal reminiscing.  I speak of my grandmother on my mother’s side.  I can’t even start to describe what a wonderful woman my grandmother was.  I see her in my mother every time we spend time together and I think that is part of the reason I love my mom more and more every time we are together.  My grandmother was a woman filled with great warmth….she was the definition of selfless.  Even though I was only 13 when she passed I can still remember the way her house smelled and the way she smiled with such sincerity.  When I was 10 or 11 my parents left my sister and I at my grandparent’s house while they went Christmas shopping and I remember sitting in the living room just baking in the heat.  I am not sure why so many old people want their house to be 90 degrees all year round.  The hotter it got the sicker I felt.  My grandmother asked me if I wanted to sit on her lap and not even 30 seconds after sitting down I threw up all the way from her shoulders to her feet.  All my grandmother did was place my face in her hands and asked in the sweetest voice if I felt better and she just let out a little laugh.  She didn’t overreact or get upset, she loved me so unconditionally and I will hold onto that moment until my last day.

As I have grown in age I have asked my mom a lot more about her family and every time she speaks of her mom (my grandmother) I feel what my mom feels.  My mom loved her mother so much…I sometimes think that they are really the same person.  My grandmother passed away almost 20 years ago on Christmas morning (around 3am).  I remember lying in my bed and hearing the phone ring in my parent’s room and hearing my mom start to sob.  I didn’t move.  I just remained in my bed hoping that I would drift back to sleep.  The next morning my parents got us up to open presents and I waited for my mom to tell us but she didn’t.  She told us much later in the day and explained that she didn’t want to ruin our Christmas by making us all sad….she said she wasn’t going to tell us until the next day but her heart was hurting and she knew we would know something was wrong.  I never said anything to my mom until I was well into my 20’s.  We were sitting around talking about Christmas and she mentioned her mother and the phone call she received and I looked at her and told her that I knew…I told her that I heard the whole thing.  I was 13 years old and I knew then that my mom was being selfless in the exact same way her mother would have been by not telling us until the time was right….not putting a damper on our Christmas.  As I type these words right now tears have started to fall from my eyes because in my life I have been truly blessed to have known and learned from these two beautiful women….these women that have not just taught me but have shown me what is means to be compassionate and empathetic and to live life with great love in your heart.  I hope that if an afterlife of some form does exist that I get to spend more time with my grandmother because there is so much more I want to learn from her….I want to hear her voice and feel her arms around me….I want to tell her that she was a piece of strength in me that I didn’t know I had for a long time…for that I want to thank her.  I would give anything to spend one more day with my grandmother (especially at this age) so I could ask her the story of her life and tell her what an impact she had on me in just the 13 years we had together.  My grandmother was a hero in my eyes and I never told her that because it took me a long time to learn….I loved her though with everything in me and that she knew.