My heart has stitches that sometimes want to break.

I don't dream of you very much anymore. I wake up most mornings and the sad feeling is there, knowing that I could have had some stolen moments with you in my dreams. Sipping on my morning coffee and looking out at the snow on the ground that is melting away, my heart is sad. Life has become....normal without you here. I hate that. I don't want that huge hole in my heart to be reopened but at the same time I hate that not talking to you on the phone, seeing your face for lunch dates and listening to your frantic voice mails about me not driving in the fog are no longer there. Christmas is coming, it is my favorite Holiday, something that you instilled in me, giving gifts. Seeing the faces of the ones we love opening a gift and their joy....your last Christmas with me wasn't anything special, in fact the last few Christmas' of your life I didn't spend much of the day with you. I hate that. I hate that I pushed you aside to run off to others, I did that a lot in the last year of your life. I loved you always and I enjoyed our time together but I was always in a hurry, I always had somewhere to be or something to do. Was that a reason why you didn't want to fight as much this time? I will always have to live with that thought. The last night that I saw you alive and conscious.....you didn't want me to leave. You cried as I was told I had to leave the hospital that visiting hours where over. I think you knew, you knew you were leaving,  we always called each other "favorite friend" you were always so much more than my Grandmother. You ARE so much more than my Grandmother, see I use you in the past tense now. I hate that. I sit her watching my daughter smile and giggle at the tv and my heart hurts, I didn't get to show you her, yes you saw her and Xander in heaven before they were given to me, but I missed out on the joy of showing them to you. Oh how they would have loved you, and how they could have bragged that you were their Great Grandma. Lord knows I love knowing that while everyone calls you Nanny and loves you as their Grandma, you were always truly mine. One day my children's children will call me Nanny..I hope I can be even half of what you were to me to them...and I hope that one day Bella will want that of her children's children. I love you Nanny, and even though your void in my life has become...almost normal, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of you, miss your snorts of laughter, your silly misuse of words, your hot tea, your singing, your soft warm arms that always hugged just the right amount of tight, your kindness, and above all your wonderful loving heart. When you talked to me about death and I said, I don't want to hear it, you aren't going to die, you put your hands on my cheeks, looked me straight in the eyes and said, "I love you, I will always be in your heart."  Forever you will stay Nanny......always in my heart.

Nanny April 2006