20 of 29

Write now Article Tools

When I was 19 years old I lost my first family member the first person in my life that I would have to see dead. I lived my life growing up with a tight family. Everyone lived different places but everyone tried there hardest to keep in touch and visit as often as possible. I live in Ohio My father along with his family lives in Paris, Ky. My mother and her side of the family live up here beside the few selected ones from my moms side who live a town over over from my dads relatives in Lexington, Ky. I received a phone call two days after my fiance left for training for the Army reserve. My Great Grandmother on my fathers side had passed away from a heart attack. Her daughter my grandmother was also in the hospital at this time where she had spent the last few months deathly sick. I remember my sister coming to my apartment which she had only visited once before and knocking on my window. I worked 3rd shift so I didn't hear her at the front door. My family had called and they wanted all of us to be there for are Grandmother when we informed her that her mother had passed away. We all new that it was not going to be easy. Or even if we were doing the right thing. But we new how selfish it would for us not to tell her we had no idea what this news could do.

I remember my granny just sitting there quiet in the hospital room almost like she wasn't even there just looking at each of us she wasn't the same as the last time i had saw her before the news. The time before this one i visited and she told me that she was going to get better and that she was going to Sing in my wedding the one thing that I wanted more than anything. Even after all the bad things she heard about him she new that was what i wanted and she was going to get better so that she could do it. My Great Grandmother didn't have Life Insurance and trust me If u dint have it be sure to get one big enough to pay off your bills and as morbid as it sounds it doesn't hurt to buy a grave site and pay for your own casket before the day arises Your only making ur family in more stress than they already are. My Granny Smith My great grandmother did have a grave site which saved us some money but we all still had to come together as a family to get her a casket and still didn't have enough money to give her the proper burial that she deserved.
I kinda of blocked it all out. I know it wasn't to much longer after that the family was calling us all back in for my grandmother, Granny Rita. When We arrived I remember walking into her room and looking at the screen and her blood pressure and heart beat were really low her body was swelled with fluids and that is the memory i am stuck with today. I try to remember all of the good times with her and i do but then sometimes i go back to that day and then the day she was lying in the casket and knowing that the woman that I thought would out live us all wouldn't. The heart can only handle so much and you can only live with so much pain and i guess the pain of losing you mother is the ending pain. I hope that my mother outlives me because i really cant imagine loosing my mother like she lost hers.

Learn more about this author, Jessicajo Barnett.
Click here to send author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Reflections: Loss of a grandparent?
We want to hear your view. Write now!