My sweet grandpa went to heaven, October 31st, 2015. It’s hard to believe that only a month has gone by without his presence here on earth. Even though I live thousands miles away I am reminded of him throughout my weeks and grief hurts. I am so thankful that I was able to have two-weeks off from teaching to go back to say good-bye and be a support to my grandma and mama. I arrived just in time to have a short, but sweet little evening by my grandpa’s bedside in the nursing home. He was unable to talk, but he could hear our voices. My grandma says “he was waiting for me to come back.” He smiled when he heard my voice. The very last thing I said to him was “I love you, grandpa” and then I kissed him on the head as we said “good-night” and had plans to come back right away in the morning to spend the day with him. I never got to come back and spend the day with him because he entered into heaven’s gate early that morning. I was hoping to have some more time with him, but now I just have the wonderful memories and working through grief. Grief does crazy things to you and right now I am in the “I wish I would have…” I wish I would have just stand the night with him… I didn’t sleep at all that night- I was so restless, but it just wasn’t meant to be and I have to be okay with that. I am trying to focus on the things that I loved about my grandpa. I loved his sweet tooth. He would always take 3 or 4 treats off the plate that I was serving to him and then wink his eye at me. It was our little secret… shhh! He had a huge sense of adventure- really never a dull moment. My very favorite, but scary memory of his sense of adventure was when my brother and I traveled back to Washington with my grandparents. My grandpa decided to take a “short-cut”. The “short-cut” was an old logging road- let’s just say it was a very bumpy, high, close to the edge of the cliff kind of road. Scary! He drank at least 3 glasses of milk a day and let me tell you he had the strongest bones until the very end! He loved to tell stories over and over again, but even though I sometime tuned them out I miss them. Every summer for the past 12 summers I have spent some time at my grandparents and every time I was there my grandpa would have me cut his toe nails… oh, my! He would also always save me the Sunday morning ads from the newspaper and ask me how many miles I ran when I would come back from running. He was proud of me and it’s wonderful to have a supporter like that! There are so many wonderful memories that I have of my grandpa, but the one that I am missing the most right now is no matter how many times I talked to him on FaceTime he couldn’t get over the fact that I was talking to him all the way from Korea. It just amazed him. I miss that. Yes, I am thankful knowing that his body is renewed in heaven and that he is no longer in pain, but I miss him. I love you grandpa! Thanks for loving me well.
And my sweet grandma is an amazing role model to me. I am so thankful for her love, support and prayers. She is grieving the lost of her husband of 65 years. She says “I am focusing on finding at least one blessing day to help me through this time.” She is a beautiful woman of God. I love you, grandma!
Love, Daniella
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