Why do all the people I love die or leave me?

Part three...
After my mother's last divorce, we moved in with my grandmoma, GM (that was my nickname for her). She was a dream maker. Always believing in the good in me, when I did not see it. She always made sure that we had warm coats and shoes in the winter. In the spring, she would buy us beautiful Easter outfit, Patton shoes and a hat. She always told me that my day would come and to hold on and believe. She was a dreamer and I loved her for that kindness and her unique ability not to judge anyone.

Momma was going to nursing school and worked at a discount store at night. I was in college as well as my married sister. GM would send me five dollars a week and I thought I was so lucky to have a little extra money. It was three days before Thanksgiving, when my GM died. So every fall around that time, I get a little melancholy. I was twenty-one when she died and it has taken a life time to heal. To this day, I miss her still and I think of her every time I cook chicken N dumplings because as a child, she taught me how to make them

My grandmother died while I was home alone with her. She had a cerebral hemorrhage and died instantly. Although there was nothing I could do to save her, I felt like I should have been able to help her. It has taken me years to forgive myself. I really freaked out that night. I could not even think. I was in sheer shock and insanity took over that night.

My mother worked in the emergency room of another hospital in different town. And that is where I told the ambulance to take my grandmother. I thought I was going to loose my mother that night as well because she had heart trouble and had a fight with grandmoma before she went to work. It was inconceivable that my beloved grandmother had died. We all lived together in my grandmoma's house. The house was empty without her. We had a thawed turkey to cook and none of us had ever cooked the Thanksgiving meal, much less dressing and gravy. We knew we had to cook it because we were not raised to waste anything. Some how we got that big turkey cooked, but it was a terribly lonely day.

Since then we have lost all of our parents. That was difficult because we were not prepared for the finality that death brings. The realization that we will never get to talk with them, hug them or kiss them one more time. It is just overwhelming. We were no longer invincible. Our turn would be next. We would loose dear sweet friends, aunts, uncles and come to face our own mortality. So something I have always taken for granted, has become very precious to me, life.

I believe that God prepares us for the very things that we may fear the most. I feared death all my life. I came to better understand death when my own mother died years later. I feel like it was one of the most special things I have experienced in my life. I hold death with great reverence and respect. As I write this, I know that I am prepared to meet my maker. I just hope that my sons and daughter by marriage can embrace death , not fear it and know that we will all be together again one day soon.