Grandma's Story

I’ll never forget that last vision of her.  She sat in a rocking chair looking through the window as she kissed me goodbye. When she kissed my father and said, "Good-bye my little boy."

He was her little boy, the youngest of her children. She was my "Grandma"-73 years old and dying from pancreatic cancer.

My dad and I went to visit grandma at my aunt’s house in Florida. My Aunt Nikki had stopped her life for a year to take care of her mother that we all knew would soon be taken away from us.

Grandma had lived with us in an apartment within our home for many years. I knew this would be the last time I would get to spend time with her.

What a beautiful person she was, inside and out. She did everything for her husband while he was alive and lived for her children and grandchildren. I will never forget grandma’s cooking. Her Italian sauce and pasta could make your mouth water when you walked in the room. Anything grandma made tasted great. No one could cook like she did.

I remember thinking when grandma got sick that she would never get the chance to see me get married or have children of my own. I have a wonderful husband and beautiful baby. How I wish grandma could have met them. My husband’s sense of humor would have her laughing and my son would have stolen her heart. One day. One day I know grandma will know them and love them too.

What seems to stand out are the words she used when I visited her that last time in Florida. "I want to go home." she said. I felt terrible because her home was in New York with us and she was now spending her last days in Florida, away from us and so far from her home. I had a loss for words and didn’t know what I could say to make her feel better.

"I want to go home…to be with my father in heaven." she said. It was then that I realized what she had really meant. My eyes welled up with tears as I tried to be strong. I knew how tired she was. It was now time for her to go. To be home with her father in heaven…

Story By: Margaret