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I’ve been struggling for most of this month, I’m not going to lie. I’m going to keep this post pretty short.
My grandmother passed away a few weeks ago, she was 91 years old. It’s been an incredibly difficult time for my family and I because she’s literally always been there for all of us. I lived with her for about 17 years, which is over half of my life, so anywhere I look I remember something about her. She was the only grandparent of mine that I got to meet.
She was a hell of a woman, she lived through so much in her life. She grew up poor and worked farming tobacco for a lot of her life. She didn’t get her license until she was 36 years old. She lived through WWII, the civil rights movement, us landing on the moon, 9/11, the rise of the internet, just so many events. She went from a time where having indoor plumbing and a radio was a luxury, to cars driving themselves. Although she was 91 years old, used Facebook quite a bit, which some 40 year olds don’t have a hold on like she did. She was incredibly goofy and we picked on her all the time for it, but if I make it to 91 I’d be ecstatic to be half as coherent and smart as she was.
I generally believe that everything happens for a reason, and for the longest time I could not understand the reason why I hurt my back so badly, or why I wasn’t getting better like everyone said I should have been. I had to work from home and skip out on a lot of trips over the past year, I couldn’t help her with her flowers or anything like I had been able to before, I felt totally useless. But then I found the reason. I was having a rough few days of back pain, and was being kinda emotional over everything. I was talking to my mom about how bad I felt, how I wish I hadn’t hurt my back, and how I should’ve been able to help her with more than I was able to. She said “Well, think about it, if it hadn’t happened then you wouldn’t have got to spend so much time with her. She didn’t have as many flowers or get to do as much, but she wasn’t alone very much like she would’ve been had you been going to work like normal.”. That made it all click. God knew I would regret the time I didn’t get to spend with her, so he let me work in the same room with her for almost her entire final year. God also knew she wouldn’t rest seeing me in such pain all the time like I had been, because she did worry about me and hated to see me hurting as much as I did. She got to see me start getting better and get to go places too, so she knew I’d be ok. That single conversation totally changed my entire view on my back problems. I used to say I’d give anything to go back and undo what I did to my back, but now I’d go back through that pain 10x to keep it the way it was. It hurt, very very badly, but I’d give anything to go back and live it all exactly the same way.
Last month I talked about Baxter and Thievin passing away and I ended the post by saying you how you should tell those you love that you do love them. Every time I left to go somewhere and every time we went to bed I would tell her I loved her, and she’d always say it back. Even though I told it to her every day, several times a day, I wish I had told her more. But, I’m incredibly blessed to say that my last words to her were “Goodnight, I love you. I’ll see you in the morning.”. Please, reach out to those you love and tell them that you love them. It takes so little time, but it’s such an important thing. And if your grandmother or grandfather is still around, hug their necks tight for me. That’s what she would always say when I would leave for a longer than average trip, “come hug my neck”.
I’ll try to get back to regular posts next month. Thank you for reading about my Nanny.