Love.

A week ago yesterday we said goodbye to my sweet Granny. My heart aches everyday I have to go on without her but I know she fought hard and lived a life filled with love and light. And for that I am at peace. Granny and I had a deep connection from the moment I was born, she was that one person I knew would always protect me. She told me I was right when my parents said otherwise and she listened when I needed to complain about pretty much anything. In the beginning it was my parents and their unfair ways, then it was friends and boy trouble at school and in more recent years Bobby and marital “bliss”. She would nod and listen and never say anything negative about the opposing side but she still always made me sure to let me know she had my back.

She was kind and sweet and fiercely loyal. She always made a point to make sure I knew how much she loved me and how proud she was of me as her granddaughter and the mother I had become. Just two weeks ago when Emerson and I had gone to visit her at the Nursing Home, out of nowhere she said “She’s very smart Annie, you are a wonderful Mom and you are doing a great job!” I don’t know what made her say it. Em wasn’t doing anything extraordinary. In fact I think she was pulling on her oxygen tank and being quite naughty but the next time we went to visit Granny she was very weak and could hardly speak. So maybe she knew she needed to tell me that day. I don’t know. But I know I will hold on to that for the rest of my life and be grateful that she thought so highly of me and the mother I am. Coming from her it means more than you know.

In the last week we have gone through dozens of photographs of her as a child and then her with her own children and us grandchildren. And in all of the pictures the one thing that radiates is the love. Granny loved with every fiber of her soul. She made sure that people knew they were loved. She told them and she showed them. I want to make sure that I love that way. I don’t want to let another day go by without letting people know that I love them. I want to love the way that Granny did.

Because even in her weakest moment she still found a way to make me feel her love…

and for that she is the strongest woman I have ever known.