Longest Good-bye

Tomorrow is her birthday, but I'm not sure she knows it. She has been in a live-in care facility for three and a half years, and full time home care for three and a half years before that. Her husband, Rod's Dad, took care of her needs before that.
She hasn't moved much for a long time. Rod and I were saying how strange that was because before his Mom got sick, she never stopped moving. Washing dishes, making jam, decorating cakes, holding grand-babies, hosting women's bible study at her home, she was always on the move.
 It is a rainy, blowy dark morning and I'm grieving for her because I miss her.
I can't even begin to list all the ways she has impacted our family, or myself personally. She was the impetus for most every family gathering and she planned every detail from the food to the decorations to the entertainment. We flounder without her.
 I've dreamed that we are in her kitchen getting ready for a Christmas dinner and she is wearing her apron and moving too fast for me to keep up and she is talking to me and I can see her quick smile and hear her delighted laugh. I  see her like it was yesterday, before her illness ravaged her so completely.
She loves her family and she loves God, pursuing both relentlessly.
I know that she is going home to Jesus, and I know that her long time of suffering is very nearly at it's end. I know that is reason for great celebration, both here and there. I know this.
But today I'm grieving. I miss her.

Grandma Charlene with Josiah.

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