Death caught me by surprise

I have been blessed to be born into a HUGE family with a loving grandmother, who played the matriarch role well. Grandma, has been a role model of love, service, integrity and a hardworker. She has been more than a grandmother to me….she has been a mom to me, I have always loved her equally as I love my mother. Over the years, I have lived far from grandma because we moved here to the USA, but she has always visited here for months at a time and as in the last seven years we have gone to see her in a regular basis. Grandma and I always talked on the phone and kept each other informed of all the family news.

Last week in one of my regular calls I was told that she was sick and that same evening, I decided that I needed to go to Colombia the next day and see her, because she was not doing well. Hours later, as I was sleeping, I received the dreadful news that she had died. This was a surprise, because she was fine the day before and now she was dead. She became sick and died in a period of about 24 hours. At this point my life came to a stop, however, I thank God for His love and promises that we will be together one day.

I say that death caught me by surprise, because we didn’t really have an opportunity to prepare, she was fine and then she was gone. I do have to admit that over my last visit, I felt that soon she needed to rest as her health had been fragile for such a long time and she had to work so hard to do daily activities, but I knew she was being strong for all of us. The pain of loosing a loved one is not one that I am really familiar with, and I will admit that the way my family came together last week, was just what we needed as we grieved my grandmother’s death.

It was a cultural shock to me, because, the way we do funerals here was a little different over there, so when I was told that we had a viewing on Tuesday all day until 11 pm, I thought for sure I would not be able to handle that. `Then for the next two days we had two memorial services for her and a last goodbye on Friday. Even though I thought four days of viewing, two memorials and one day to take her ashes to a specific river she had requested, would be too much, I was blessed to realize that it was not. We had the right amount of time we needed to grieve as a large family the death of our beloved matriarch. The time to cry, to embrace, to celebrate, to tell stories of beautiful memories carved by my grandmother in each one of our hearts was definitely healing.

The support we received from friends and distant family was amazing, and I never realize how meaningful it would be to have each of them there even though much was not said. Whenever you have an opportunity, make sure you let someone that has lost a loved one, know that you are thinking of them. Even if its in a text message. (I have received many of those too and loved each one of them).

My biggest take away from experiencing my grandmother’s death, is that I am thankful for her legacy, and I want to live to leave a legacy for my children and grandchildren too. This doesn’t happened by accident but by living a life with purpose. I am also thankful that I don’t have regrets, I loved my grandmother and always made sure she knew it. It has been two weeks since she died and I miss her greatly, but I am at peace, yes, God gives me peace, but in addition to that, I know that it helps that I have no regrets. I WANT TO LIVE MY LIFE MAKING SURE THAT I HAVE NO REGRETS! The way I treat everyone around me and specially my family. When, my daughter had a stroke at 3 years old, I begged the Lord to give me more time with her. I know I had done my best to be a good mom to her, but I also knew in my heart I wanted to spend more time with her and we had it in our plans for me to stop working in the near future so that I could stay home full time with the girls. Having her so close to death, made me want to make the best out of every moment, as the only thing we have certain is this very moment, we don’t know what the next will bring. I would like to challenge you to join me, in living everyday to the fullest making sure everyone we love know it, so that if they are ever not with us, we have no regrets.