Love you forever

Two years ago, my great-grandmother decided to change a light bulb. Something as simple as a light bulb changed my life forever.

I received a phone call the next day, the kind where your blood runs cold and you dread the words that come next. The moment I heard my aunt’s voice, I knew something bad happened.

My beloved Nani had fallen down the stairs and was rushed to the hospital. That gut-wrenching news hit me in the pit of my stomach. I had been a block away from her house the day of the accident. I so badly wish I had stopped in, if only to say a quick hello. What if she had mentioned her plans? What if I could have stopped her? What if I had found her sooner? So many “what if’s” that I will never know the answer to.

The first several days were agonizing. The doctors fought to save her life, not sure if she would survive the next 24 hours.

Pale, unmoving, frail, no longer the picture of health. The shrunken woman in the hospital bed was not Nani. I couldn’t stay in the room and look at her that way, especially knowing that she had layed at the bottom of the stairs for hours before being found. Those “what if’s” began to creep back into my head.

I replaced them with memories of her.

Memories of her endless cookie jar, which contained the grossest oatmeal cookies. I thought of the summers we spent together. Nani was the best seamstress I have ever known. She embroidered elaborate designs, sewed homemade dresses for my mother and her cousins and, eventually, for me. She tried, oh how she tried, to teach me how to sew. I lacked her patience and constantly stuck myself with the needle. I gave up after a few weeks.

She took me to the YMCA for swimming lessons. We would go home and spend the rest of the afternoon together where I would steal an ice pop or two from the freezer.

I thought of all the times we had a lunch dates at the local Fish Market. We talked about so many things. That is what I miss the most, being able to talk to her.

She survived the accident, but she is not the same. And she never will be. Her brain was too damaged. I am lucky if she remembers who I am.

I love Nani with all my heart and always will, but inside I know she already is gone. She is not the same woman I grew up knowing and loving. Her body is still on this earth, but her soul has gone.

Love you forever.