GiGi

There is a 2 hour time difference between California and Wisconsin and a 3 hour time difference from Florida, so I was still sleeping this morning when my brother and children were trying to contact me. It wasn't until I heard the little pitter-patter on my door and Bobby barking to notify me that there was someone outside: Micah was here with Kenni in hand. At the same time, I noticed my phone blinking (I always turn it off when I go to sleep) and when I answered, Leah was on the phone crying and I couldn't get her to tell me what was wrong. Micah interrupted and gently said, "Mom, Grandma died during the night," and as I sat back down on my bed, he held me in his arms, and I began to cry from the loss that you can only feel when someone close to you dies. I was so thankful he was there to hold me and I knew he would for as long as I needed him to. Kenni looked at me with uncomfortable eyes and didn't know quite how to react, seeing her grandma like she's never seen her before.  Micah explained to Kenni how much she would have loved her GiGi (short for great-grandma). As we sat there together, we agreed how painful this was, even though I've been praying lately that God would just take her home to be with Him, so her suffering would end. He did just that, and so I have no reason to be surprised or sad now. But I am.

It's the strangest feeling in the world to be at the top of my birth family. I have always been the head of my own family since I was a single mom, but now I'm suddenly the matriarch of the Schwartz family, too. I guess the baton of sorts has now been tossed to me and I really don't know what all that means, but what I do know is that it's a very lonely place to be. I now feel in some small way, how my mom must have felt when my dad died.

Growing up, my relationship with my mother was at times, very tumultuous. I didn't like or appreciate her when I was young, for whatever reason, and I wasn't the daughter I should have been. It took a lot of years of living before I came to love and understand her for who she was, and I only wish it wouldn't have taken me so long. We waste so much time when we live our lives only thinking  about ourselves.

I won't miss calling her on the phone and her not knowing who I was or listening to her mumbling about things I didn't understand. I won't miss seeing her frail body unable to feed herself or pick herself up to a sitting position. I won't miss the repetition of questions and trying to explain to her the same things over and over again.

But I will miss you, mom. I will miss your strict ways when I was a kid and hated you for it. I will miss your strange sense of humor that really only you understood. I will miss your hands that I used to like to push the puffy veins down on and your wedding ring that I loved to look at and pretend it was on my own finger. I will miss asking you for recipes and telling you about my children and visiting you at the house on Gondola Drive. I will miss all of that and more.

It's only been a few hours, and frankly, I already do...