Chocolate Chips

I've never lost anyone really close to me...until now. My Grandma Kohls died last night. I was by her bedside for about 3 1/2 hours as she laid there struggling to breathe, fidgeting in death, but still puckered her lips to kiss and gently wrap her arms around me to hug my neck. She didn't die with me there so I said a goodbye as I left to go outdoors into a snowstorm. I told her thank you for the wonderful memories, that I needed to go put Leah and Logan to bed and that they loved her with all of their hearts, I told her I needed a kiss and a hug which I got and I said, "God Bless You". I told her many other things as I sat by her side last night, stroking her arm, holding her hands, rubbing her shoulder. All of the memories I have of the hours which turned into days which turned into weeks that I spent with her and Grandpa: her tickling my arms as we watched cartoons together, her filing her nails and me watching and learning, us going to breakfast at the Colonial restaurant, golfing together, the lack of volume on the Tigers Games because she got so nervous for her 'boys of summer', the Girl Scout cookies in the bread box that I confiscated, the Christmas Cookies she made with mom each year and I would come in to the kitchen and see the array of wonder, her sassy Swede attitude, her beautiful blue eyes and my jealousy for them, her fancy shoes that I would wear as dress-up and that I made my valiant efforts to hit the doorways to make the clunk-sound with the high-heel, the hours upon hours of her sitting on the bleachers for my swim meets and band shows...this was my Grandma.

She died last night after most of us left her to rest. My mom stayed with her for the night so she wasn't alone. The nurses came to wash her face, my mom was talking to her reminding her that my dad, my Uncle Bill, my Grandpa, Ken III, Josh and I were there at her bedside earlier. She then died peacefully. My mom was with her when she went into God's open hands. It does make ME feel better to know that Grandma was able to tell my mom that she was "ready to go home".

My Grandma died after 33 years of wonderful memories with me. Do all people turn someone elses death into something personal? I don't know how to feel right now. I'm told to celebrate, but I'm sad. I'm worried about her being placed in the cold ground. I don't understand this process of death. I don't understand the body, the spirit...I never have been able to wrap my mind around it. But now I feel I need to. How else can one find that "closure" everyone talks about?

To end this seemingly path of therapeutic words, I'll end on a story. After sitting by her bedside for several hours last night, Josh and I walked into the house where Leah and Logan were freshly bathed and loved by our wonderful Miss Kate and they could see I'd been crying. Logan was very concerned so I picked her up, she wiped my tears and she proceeded to ask what was the matter. I told her that Great Grandma was very sick and that she was going to Heaven. Logan searched her mind and her heart and responded with this: "Well maybe if I bring her some chocolate chips she will feel better." Maybe, just maybe, Great Grandma had her first bite of food in weeks in Heaven and maybe it was a handful of chocolate chips!!!