TGIF

This Week's Thoughts: I end this week thinking about my grandma. I know I'm catching up the blog on life over the last year so I have not shared yet that my grandma recently passed away. Much like last year (the day after my birthday to be exact), my grandma suddenly had fluid in her lungs (due to her heart condition). Well, after last year's events, my mom and her siblings had decided not to take extraordinary measures the next time. So in February (Valentine's Day) when my grandma wasn't getting any better, they made the decision to just let her pass. The thing that gets me is just how quickly she went from smiling and laughing with us one day to struggling to breathe and stay alive the next! How is that possible?! My aunts, uncles and cousin all made it to Virginia in time to say their goodbyes. My grandma eventually passed on President's Day. I know she is in a better place. My dad said it best by saying she is finally home with her memories. All she ever wanted was to return to her home in Ohio.

Still today, I feel like she is just on a vacation somewhere and will return. When I think too much about it all, I feel guilty that we pick ourselves up and move on. How can someone be here one day and not the next and we all move on so quickly? Right now, this is my struggle. It almost seemed too easy to move on to our new normal. Maybe last year's hospital stay prepared us for her passing. The Alzheimer's took my grandma away and replaced her with grandma 2.0 long ago. Did this make it easier to lose her? In a way yes, and in a way no. We loved grandma 2.0 just the same.

I know we were truly blessed to have my grandma with us here in Virginia for two years. We saw her weekly and in the last four months almost daily. She got to meet William, which is all I ever wanted. This picture below was one of the last pictures ever taken of my grandma. She loved William so much and he brought her just as much joy and happiness as she brought to him. She is missed so much.

On Super Bowl Sunday, my sister filmed this video of my grandma with us. At the time she said, "just so we have her and William on video." I thought, "oh yeah, sure. good idea" at the time, not realizing just how much we'd come to cherish this video. At the end, she says goodbye. I think it's a happy coincidence.

What I'm Reading: So I really have not been reading much over the last year. I need to truly get back into it. With that said, I'm working on getting into my book club book!

On Nook: Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (AKA J.K. Rowling). Hoping I can get it read by the end of May when we have our book club get together.

Oh and PS. if you haven't noticed already, I've had some time lately to catch up on some blogging. Prepare for a slew of posts over the next few weeks!