RISE, A Modern Guide for the Purpose Driven Woman Spring 2014 | Page 18

on her family that it was mostly just us, and that made me mad.
I’m still mad - part of grieving, I know. One of those messy stages that
isn’t a stage at all – it’s mixed in with everything else. I’m even madder
now than I was then. I’m mad that even though I said to myself and my
family a million times that we should get her one of those emergency
alert buttons that you wear around your neck (since she lived alone),
that neither I nor anyone else ever got up the courage to approach her
with the idea. Could it have saved her life? We will never know. I’m
mad that my (much younger) brother will never know or understand
the woman I knew the way that he could have if he had more time with
her. I’m mad that she was putting on her makeup and getting ready
for the day that she never got to have when she had a heart attack. I’m
mad that she hit her head on the way down, even if it happened when
she was already gone (or did it?). She was all alone with nobody to hold
her hand – and that makes me so MAD! Was she scared? Was she in
pain? Did she wish for help? I haven’t stopped torturing myself with
the details and I don’t know that I ever will. I’m mad that her very modest estate has caused issues within the family, within her boys that she
loved so much and would give anything to make happy. The last thing
she would have wanted was family fighting, yet there it is. I’m mad that
we have no choice other than to sell her house. A house that smells like
her, a home that offered more comfort and holds more cherished memories than any other place I know. And, after all of that, I’m even mad
at her – I’m mad at her for leaving me when I wasn’t ready for her to.
Her mother, my Great Grandmother, is still alive and just turned 100!
She was supposed to live so much longer. How could she leave me?
As far as acceptance goes, I don’t think I’m ready for it. I’m so terrified
that I will forget the sound of her voice, or what she smelled like. Righ