tearful eyes, joyful heart

there is no real relevancy that brings me to share this today, except for the fact that i randomly signed into my myspace account a few hours ago and have been reading blog entries from my days in 2006-2008. i actually forgot that i regularly blogged back then... but now that i've come across the words of high school sarah, i'm sure i'll be sharing some of what i had to say back then at some points now.

tonight i want to share a post that was entitled "she's watching over me". i wrote it on may 29, 2007 and it is my account of my Grandma Davis passing away. it brought me to tears as i read it and i just feel in my heart a desire to share it here...

My grandma passed away last Tuesday (May 22, 2007) and this past week has been pretty overwhelming, but not really in a bad-stressful sort of way. I was close to her, I'd say. She wasn't able to leave the house much, so I would often run and get groceries for her, bring them to her house, and then sit around and chat for at least an hour. She went to the hospital last December because she was often short of breath. After laying in a hospital bed for about a week, her legs lost the little strength that they had and it was suggested to her family that she should move into a nursing home to regain the strength. And so, to the nursing home she went! At first she hated being away from her home.. the house she had raised her family in and where she had lived for 50 years. So, we all tried to make her feel more welcomed at the nursing home by just making her room more homey. I took an old bulletin board of mine, decorated it, put tons of family pictures on it and then hung it up on the wall by her bed. Small items were brought from her house to the nursing home, and after awhile her room seemed to be a lot more comforting.

A few times, I even went and played bingo with my grandma at the nursing home. I never won, but she did. And it will be these memories of her and I that I will have forever. I would often visit her after school and stayed there for hours. We would just talk. She would ask me about my day and I would ask her about hers. She knew that I joined the softball team, she knew that I went to Biloxi with some friends, she knew all the little things that would happen throughout my day.. and I knew that she got her hair done that day, that she hadn't been feeling good lately, that her roommate left the tv on all night and it annoyed her a lot.. and it was these little chats that always made me grateful for my grandma.

Whenever I would leave I would say "I love you Grandma.. I'll see you later" and I would give her a kiss on the cheek. She'd say "Alright.. see you later Sarah" and kiss me on the cheek too. I often didn't know if that would be the last time that I would talk to her or not.. but it never was. And it's not even that she was sick often.. it was just that, I just never knew. I mean, who knows really?

For Mother's Day this year, my family reserved one of the family rooms at the nursing home. The whole family was there and my grandma was happy. She would read the cards and tear up and it was precious. The few hours that we were there, I now look back on and it seems like they were just minutes. It is times like these, when she was happy, which made everyone happy, that I will miss. The memory of her will always be with us, and knowing that she is even happier now will make us happy.. but just the physical happiness of her will be absent. The physical viewing of her smile will be gone. Now, it has all been captured in a mental vision. Grandma's eyes, smile, heart, and words. Everything about her.

The Friday after Mother's Day, Grandma wasn't feeling too well, so one of my aunts took her to the hospital. They ran some tests and saw that she really wasn't doing too well. Her kidneys were barely working and her breathing was slow. On Saturday morning, my parents and Ben came to my softball game since it was Senior Day. They were setting up chairs and I was outfield warming up.. and then my mom signaled me to the fence. It ended up, one of my aunts had called my dad and said that Grandma wasn't looking too good. Everything seemed to be shutting down. My family and I then gathered up our stuff and left the game. We went straight to the hospital and stayed there until about 2 in the afternoon. It was true that she wasn't looking too good, but she was at a pretty stable state at the time where nothing drastic was really believed to happen soon.

It broke my heart to see her laying there that Saturday. With an IV in her arm.. a cool washcloth on her forehead.. her eyes closed.. she did look quite sick. Regardless, however, I couldn't stay away. I always wanted to go to the hospital.. as soon as I would wake up. After church on Sunday, I went there. On Monday, I went there. Also, Monday was the day the doctors took her IV out. Her kidneys were barely working, and regardless of how much fluid was put into her, hardly any was released. That is when it was decided to take the IV out.. why give her fluid if she is just going to retain it. Then, because of this, her hands became quite puffy. Saturday and Sunday she had been pretty coherent and would open her eyes quite often, but now, Monday, she seldom opened her eyes and she rarely said a word. I left Monday to go to softball practice and I said to her, "I'm going to go now Grandma, okay?" and she responded "Ok". I then said, "I'll see you later.. I love you". But, she didn't say a word. I never knew that those would be my last words to her.

Tuesday morning, I called my dad around 10. He had been at the hospital since 7 and I wanted to see if he minded if I came up now. He said, though, that he didn't want me to come up that day. He told me that Grandma was getting worse and he didn't want me to see her this way. I was disappointed that I couldn't go, but I knew it was for the best. Throughout the day, whenever my phone would ring, I would get sort of anxious. Never nervous, just curious. To me it seemed that no news was good news.. and that just was that.

After my game Tuesday night, I went home and immediately asked my dad how Grandma was doing. He said, "You know how she wasn't doing too good today?" And I responded, "Yes." "Well," he said, "Grandma died this afternoon Sarah." I fell to the floor and cried. My dad comforted me, but I was broken. It's not that I didn't want her to die.. but the thought of her being gone was just devastating. I know she is in a happier place now. I know she is with my grandpa. And best of all, I know she is with Jesus. She is free for eternity. She is finally living and I want to be happy for her. But it is hard. Very hard.

It takes courage to talk about it all. And it takes a lot to be strong throughout it all. But I'm trying. My family is here. My friends are here. And my Jesus is here. I tear up when I think about her.. but they are happy tears. I will miss her, but I can still talk to her. She is in heaven and that brings joy to my heart. I will see her again someday.. but until then, I will live here and she will live there. And we will be separated by space, but not by mind. I will love her and cherish the times we had together, forever.