It's been five days... five days since I said goodbye, five days since I heard the family say "She's waiting for you." Five days since we all sang Amazing Grace around your bedside, and some christmas carol whose title has buried itself deep inside my mind. It's been five days since I told you that it was allright to go. Five days since the last time I lied to you... it wasn't okay with me, but you had to go. You were my hero, and my world as a child revolved around getting to see you, to hear you sing your hymns while you puttered around the kitchen, to pick on your memory for names when you were flustered, to feel hugs and feel that the world had sent me to you because God knew I would need you in my hardest times. No one could fathom the love I held for you, and nobody could even remotely fathom the love you held for everyone around you, it didn't matter who you were, you were loved, and I feel so honored to have been your granddaughter for 23 years of my life, I just wish I had more. I have no doubt in my mind that my cousin saw you with angels, and I can imagine that you were telling them to wait, you weren't going yet. We got to see you die, three times, twice of which you came back, I guess hoping that Tiffany would be there, but knowing that if she did, she'd feel guilty if she had the baby there. There was a baby who was born the minute you passed, and the family has toyed with the idea of meetng the family, because we know the two times you left was to check on that baby, it's in your nature. You shouldn't have been alive, the hole in your heart should've killed you, you should've been dead before we got there, the doctors were left in shock, wondering how you'd lived long enough for us to get there. We got our goodbyes, that was all we could ask for, I remember aunt Jacque pulling for you to make it, because of her own fight for her life is what my father thinks. I remember trying to pack and not being abled to think of anything, I remember the first night, sleeping in your house with Pappaw, and nearly running outside because the silence was suffocating, no music is left in your house, no joyful chatter over this or that, no hymns to praise God in the morning, the piles of clutter are already shrinking, I remember staring at your bible, thinking, "I want it, because it was the one worldly posession you actually loved." I remember the ride back here to Florida, how the first couple of stations were gospel, and the next five or six country songs seemed like you were controlling the DJ. I miss you horribly, five days... five days too long to be without you in this world which suddenly seems so much darker without you to look forward to.
