Honestly, it still feels like a dream. I'm just waiting to go to her house to find her laying on the couch asleep with the Game Show Network on. Or feeding Bitsy all of the food she doesn't want from the Inn. Or, even, Grammy on the ground after falling.. telling JT and me her guardian angel sent us to pick her up off the floor. I'm still waiting for her witty comments and her questions about what's going on in our lives. I just miss her.. Even the parts I wish I could forget, like the last few days of her life in the hospital. I miss that, too.
Grammy was a woman of faith, hope, and love. She always tried to do the right thing. She loved everyone, no matter their past or circumstances. She defined Proverbs 31:10-31. As Proverbs 31:29 says, "Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all," and she did. I did not even realize how many people my Grammy had touched until the past two weeks. She was amazing, and I was so blessed to know her.
Grammy was diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma when I was five. The doctor only gave her six months to live, but she asked him not to tell her how long she had. Grammy wanted to live out each day how it was supposed to be lived out. She ended up beating the cancer a few years after being diagnosed. She was my Super Woman. Throughout school, if I ever was assigned a paper about who inspired us or who we wanted to be like someday, I knew right off who I would write about: Grammy. Honestly, I don't remember Grammy ever being healthy. But despite her constant illnesses, she was the best Grammy in the world. She let me pet her "pug hair" when her hair was growing back after chemo, and let me give her medicine. I was her "Anna Cane." I would roll her walker while she had her hands on my shoulders. I'm sure it was an interesting sight to see.
Grammy always supported me. Even if she couldn't come to my activities, she would ask how my performances or games went. My senior year, she came to almost every home game. She came to Muffins for Moms, she came to my graduation. She loved my heart for Honduras and was always asking how she could help. Oh, what a beautiful lady she was.
All I keep thinking about is that I'm thankful she was such a big part of my life. I'm thankful for the all of the memories I can look back on.. like when she said to me when she had fallen, "Anna, I don't drink, but I'm drunk!" I'm thankful I get to be her namesake.
I'm not sure what happens after you die, but I'm pretty sure Grammy is hanging out with her family that has gone before her, joking up a storm, redecorating her mansion, finally free of pain, and, most importantly, with her Father. And in the midst of that, I know she's watching over me, still cheering me on and supporting me wholeheartedly. Someday, I'm going to see my Grammy again, no illness within her, and we will be together again, forever.
Anna Carolyn
