It's so hard to say goodbye...

I had to say goodbye to my Memaw yesterday.

I think it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to do in my life…because she is everywhere in my memories. I can still see her handwriting, “I love you so much” scrawled at the bottom of my birthday cards. I can still see her face and her graying curly hair, and the way her eyes hid behind her glasses and drank in every movement that her grandkids and great-grandkids made. I can still hear her voice, calling me into the kitchen to eat dinner with her at a dining room table stacked with bills.

She is everywhere.

I’ve been a fragile mess since her memorial service yesterday. I heard the words offered by my great-uncle, a Baptist preacher, at the service, the same words the well-wishers echoed—that she’s in a better place, she’s not hurting anymore, she’s finally found the peace that eluded her here on earth. Maybe I’m selfish because it doesn’t ease my pain.

Memaw had a stroke back in August, two days before her 74th birthday. She spent her birthday in the hospital, bleeding internally without the doctors knowing. Before they figured it out, she had stopped breathing, and they scrambled to pump nine units of blood into her.

We’d already lost her back then, back when everybody was praying for a miraculous recovery that would shock the doctors. It did shock the doctors, too, because she lived. But she never really recovered, was never again the Memaw we all knew. She couldn’t walk or sit up or feed herself. She could talk, but only whispered words that were hard to understand. She lived in both the past and the present, sometimes knowing exactly where she was, sometimes thinking she was still working and living in her home by herself and waiting for the next weekend she would visit family.

I thought it might be easier once she died because it was so hard to see her trapped inside a shell of a body. I went to see her twice, and I remember praying that God would not keep her that way for long…whatever that looked like. He didn’t.

But now that she’s gone, a part of me has died, too. Ben says it’s the part of me that I gave to her. That’s easy to believe because the hole feels like it just goes on and on and on and has no end. I wonder if it ever will.

I couldn’t be there when she died. Ben and I traveled to New Mexico with our band to lead worship at a youth retreat. I debated going—because my junior year of high school, my paternal grandmother had died while I was on a mission trip. My dad had called before I left for the trip to tell me she was dying, but I thought I had time. She died the last day of that trip.

I had a feeling the same thing would happen with Memaw. But I knew her, and I knew she would have wanted me to go there and make an impact on those youth.

Mom called me the day we were driving back to Texas. She said Memaw had had a rough night but had finally surrendered at 6 in the morning Feb. 10. I felt my whole world grow dim, even after my mom told me she had passed away peacefully.

It wasn’t until the memorial service, though, that her death really hit me. It hit me hard. I thought about all the birthdays Jadon will celebrate without his Memaw. I thought about my future children and how they will never know what a wonderful grandma she was.

I thought about how little time I took to visit with her and just enjoy the simple moments, how few times I called her just to chat, how lonely she looked and sounded when we finally did visit or call. There’s so much I wish I could change.

I gave her a book a few years ago that asked questions about her life growing up and her marriage and her children. I wish she had filled it out, just so I could keep it on my bookshelf and let my children and their children read it and memorize her handwriting, too.

There is some comfort in knowing that the one thing Memaw always wanted, more than anything else, was for her family to be all together in one place. We haven’t been in years because of differing work schedules and the craziness of our lives. But we were yesterday. All of us, to say goodbye to a woman who had shaped all of our lives in ways that we can never forget.

If she could see it from heaven, I’m sure she smiled.

I love you, Memaw. You will always be here in my heart, even when it hurts like it does today. You will always be a part of me.

Remember
©2008 Progeny
Lyrics by Rachel Toalson

Summer nights, our first visits from home
Birthdays spent with you on the phone
Peeking in jars for hidden candy treats
Powder staining bathroom sinks

Christmas Eve such a long time ago
Trivial Pursuit asking things we don’t know
A wave that hid tears as you stood at your door
That ache when we couldn’t see you anymore

There’s too much to let go…

So I’ll remember
I’ll remember
I’ll remember you

Talking ‘bout work over home-cooked dinner
All those late nights watching Marvin Zindler
Weekend mornings you’d read the paper
While we clipped coupons to save for later

Piles and piles of bills on the table
Battling remotes that controlled the cable
Crossword puzzles and midnight Dr. Peppers
Shuffling to bed in your purple slippers

There’s too much to let go…

So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you

Love in your eyes as you rocked them to sleep
A new generation to protect and keep
Machines and tubes that took all you could give
Your whispered words, your battle to live

There’s too much to let go…

So I'll remember
I'll remember
I'll remember you

Talking and laughing and fighting and crying
I’ll remember you
Walking and breathing, your living, your dying
I’ll remember you


One of Nana's birthday parties. Memaw loved her mama.


Memaw, me and Ben after one of Ashley's choir recitals


Mom, Memaw and me after Ben's surprise 21st birthday party. Memaw told me my cake was awesome, even though it fell apart in the Texas humidity.


The family after my college graduation. Memaw was so proud.


Memaw, me, Ashley and Mom after eating at Jason's Deli in San Marcos to celebrate my college graduation.


My wedding, when we had four generations of women living. Memaw, Nana, Mom and me.


Christmas 2004, one of the last Christmases we were all together.


Christmas 2004


Memaw loved Jadon. This was the first time she got to see him, and she couldn't put him down. He loved her, too.


Memaw, eating lunch with us after Jadon's dedication to the Lord at Riverside Community, April 15, 2007. It was the last time I saw her well.


It's so hard to remember her this way. This was the last time we saw her...she couldn't take her eyes off Jadon. I know she would have loved to watch him grow...