Time to share my stories - My fall from Grace - Goodbye Meemaw

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I remember as a child going to church week. I would sing the songs and fervently listen to the messages in the sermons....well as best as I could while eagerly awaiting doughnuts afterwards. We were considered "Christian Methodist", and my Meemaw taught us prayers that we would say before every meal, and would pray with us before bed - as my parents would usually only do prayers out loud on holidays or family gatherings. Well, around the time I was 11 years old, I was told that my Grandma - my meemaw - my best friend and my whole world at that time.....had terminal cancer. I didn't exactly know what that was, but I knew that she was dying. Every day that summer, I would spend at her house. She would fall asleep on the couch, which I had never seen her do before. Then she would get up and finish her nap in her room, leaving me to my devices. In her younger years, she was an RN, so if anyone could get better, I knew she could. She was so smart and knew how everything worked. Usually when she was napping I would help her out with making treats - that she told me I could make - and I would, like always, dust off the furniture and her nicknacks shelf. Anything I could reach, I would clean for her. I'd sprinkle the carpet freshening powder on the carpet and when she woke up, I would vacuum. Some days when I would go over, I would use her electric razor to help her shave her legs too. Finally, it got to be too much to live on her own, but instead of going into hospice care, she came to live with us. My room was turned into hers as my dad was rushing to finish converting the garage into a bedroom so that she would have a huge room of her own for the care that she needed. School started up and and every day before I would leave, I'd kiss her goodbye and tell her I would be home as fast as I could. Every day, after school and on the weekends I would lay on the floor by her bed and do puzzles and read her books and was a helpless bystander as my hero went completely blind and deaf. I prayed every morning and every night for God to heal her. Every night for her to get back to being her normal self so we could be together longer. I prayed for Him to not take her away from me. October 23 of that year, just as I always did, I was doing a puzzle on the floor. My aunt Cindy had flown out from Ohio to help my mom, and she was sitting in the rocking chair reading the bible as a pop filled the air. My grandma started coughing. I jumped to my feet and saw the blood coming from her mouth. My aunt Cindy told me to go wake up my mom, so I did. She flew out of bed as she put on her own hearing aids and my dad told me to go take our dog for a walk - I was so scared, that I agreed so I could be out of the way while I hoped to hear an ambulance come to save her. Instead of an ambulance, my little brother came speeding up on his skates. "mom said we need to come back if we're gonna say goodbye to grandma." he took the leash and went back home as fast as he could. I ran.....the other way. I ran as fast as I could to the closest field, which was the crappy little basin by my house and I fell to my knees. I screamed at God, begging to not take her from me. Believing that if I didn't say goodbye, she couldn't leave......but she did. I knew it, felt it - the exact moment that she died. I cried and screamed for hours. the neighbors who passed by started crying with me. It felt as though in that moment, the world was crying with me. I screamed that I hated God and I would never talk to him again for stealing away my best friend. I still haven't quite retained the faith that I once had. I pray with my daughters when they want to pray. We randomly go to church, but since my Meemaw was stolen from me, I have adapted a different outlook on religion - I've studied many religions and I take the bits and pieces that resonate and incorporate it into my life. Well, as all things come full circle in time...October 23rd, my second daughter was born. With curly dark hair, just like hers. With an innate drive to care for others. Just like her. With an imagination just like my grandma tried to support and encourage with me - and it worked. I still have a hard time praying sometimes, and I still struggle with walking onto any church grounds - never really feeling like I belong, but I will always talk to her. Even as I started writing this, my little Novalee - my second daughter curled up on my lap and smiled at me as she fell asleep, rubbing my arm. Somehow, everytime I feel like I need my meemaw, or start writing or talking about her, Novalee is right there, wanting to cuddle or play with my hair, or just act goofy to make me laugh. I don't know if I'll ever rise to Grace again, but I do know one thing - I will never stop loving or missing my meemaw, and I will continue to celebrate her life by making a HUGE deal out of her favorite holiday - Halloween....I even got married on Halloween (and in costume) in her memory. I try to live everyday with the biggest lesson she wanted me to know: "You don't have to be the smartest or faster. You don't have to be the best in anything you do. As long as you do good AND be good, you'll make me proud." You see, you can do good things without being a good person, and you can be a good person without doing good things. but doing both........doing both is what makes a person great. I love you meemaw.