She's in a better place...

I've said for years that I've been fortunate enough to not have lost anyone close to me. I've always known that was a pain I didn't want to endure though. My Grandfather passed away in September; I loved my grandfather very much, but we weren't close. He spent most of my childhood an alcoholic and I don't have any fond memories of him from my younger years. It was in the past 5-6 yrs he really started to make a turn around. I was saddened by his death.

But today I've experienced what it's like to lose someone that I'm really close too. My grandmother passed away this morning at 1:41AM. Yesterday evening her Blood Pressure dropped, and kept dropping. her blood counds kept dropping, she had lost a lot of her blood prior to having her procedure to stop the bleeding.

I have many great memories of my childhood involving my grandmother. She was the true matriarch of my family; the rock, backbone, and glue of our family. My Grandmother has 13 kids, and close to 70 grandkids and great grandkids. And she is deeply loved by all of us, and will be deeply missed. This woman truly had a heart of gold; and a woman very close to God. I've never seen this lady talk bad about anyone, condemn, criticize, raise her voice etc. She was the sweetest, most calm, sweet person you could ever ask for. She was always full of great advice, wisdom and had more love then one could ever imagine for her entire family. I was able to spend some time with her before she passed; I was there for about 5 hours. I went into a tail spin when they said there was nothing more we could do for her. I started shaking horribly bad, felt like my legs were made out of bricks, turned white as a ghost, and couldn't stop crying. After spending some time lying on the floor of the waiting room my mom called and had Jeff come get me. At this point my Grandma had quit breathing and her heart had stopped 3 times; she had lost a lot of blood, kidneys were failing, heart failure, and she was sedated and had a ventilator breathing for her. It was time for us to let her go. And they were letting us spend time with her. I hugged her, and kissed her, held her hands for a long time, and rubbed my hands through her soft white hair that I've always loved. I told her over and over how much I love her, and how much my kids love her. Then I went into my tailspin. Jeff came to get me and I could barely walk in the house, and managed to get to the bathroom just in time to get really sick. I remember sitting on the couch crying and telling Jeff I was scared to go to bed. Scared I'd forget what her hair felt like, and what her hands felt like. I dug and dug for a picture of her I was determined to find and put on my nightstand, after tearing my closet apart I never found it. I finally crawled into bed, my entire body felt like dead weight that I couldn't move. This isn't the kind of pain I imagined I'd have. It was almost as hard to tell my kids this afternoon that Grandma Johnnie had lost her battle; and rejoicing in the arms of Jesus right now. Like I told Grandma yesterday; humans are generaly greedy, selfish people. We want our loved ones to be here with us forever, but not if they are in pain, we don't want to watch her suffer anymore.

I'm working on her obituary now and buring pictures to CD's to pass out to her kids while they are in town. They are all of the pictures from the Family Reunion we had in November, and pictures from our trip to MI in September for my Grandpa's funeral. My family is passed out but I'm finding it hard to go to sleep. I got about 3.5 hrs of sleep last night, and about 5 the night before. I took some nighttime pills a bit ago in hopes it would help me sleep. My family from MI has started arriving, and we'll have plenty more over the next few days.

Please keep us all in your prayers.

RIP Johnnie, we love you!!! And can't wait to see you again. ((HUGS))...