Precious in the sight of the Lord

I went to check my facebook and for the first time in what feels like years I saw a photo of my grandmother in hospice. She's smiling and holding her sister's face, saying goodbye.

It's strange but I can't really explain how much it hurts to remember she's gone.


In my eyes she's the greatest feminist that has ever lived and I miss her.

Both my parents were victims of abuse and very much had a sense of victim mentality about them. They did their best but when I was verbally and psychologically abused by a teacher they didn't really know how to deal with me. One of the only examples in my life of someone who refused to be a victim, someone who was alway strong, was my grandmother.

When she was 17 she was told that because of problems with her reproductive system she would be unable to have children. She had four.

After a medical procedure she was told she couldn't finish high school because her school in El Paso had stairs and she couldn't use them. She transferred to Las Cruces Union High School and supported herself as a switchboard operator and lived in a boarding house.

After raising her four children she decided she wanted to become a nurse and did it. She went on to work as a nurse at Memorial Medical Center for years.

She spent much of her life traveling and didn't stop after turning 70. She spent a few summers working in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks holding her own the whole time.

She lived in her own home taking care of herself right up to 6 months before she passed. She was incapacitated by Wegener's Granulomatosis, an auto-immune disease whose treatment would have killed her faster than the disease. But even to the last she called the shots, she chose to end dialysis in June of 2007.

I was the only person in the room when she passed and those moments holding her hand are still the most important in my life. Still the hardest goodbye of all.


I suppose the most difficult part is trying to relate to someone else why someone is so important to you, why you can't let this one go. I'll be honest; it hurts less over time but the pain associated with the memories always lingers.

Seeing that photo of her hurt a lot more than I expected it to. It doesn't help that it's Easter Weekend.
Happy Easter, Wink. I still miss you.