Well I'm coming up on nearly one year in the UK -- it will be on March 28th. But this weekend/week is really the hardest so far: my grandma died Saturday night in Kansas (she died peacefully after a very short illness & was 104). After lots of agonizing & tears yesterday, I decided not to return for her funeral on Wednesday morning -- which is coming up very soon, travel at this time will be very expensive, we have literally just moved house & everything is spread out everywhere, roofers and furniture deliveries are coming this week, etc. DH said I could go if I decided to, but I just don't feel that I can or should in consideration of my responsibilities here at home. It was a really tough decision to make because my grandma helped my mom in raising me after my dad died when I was only 9 years old. The worst is that I can't be there for my mom, who has dementia & may be confused, but both of my brothers will be there. Also, I was just there in November/December. My family are all spread out in Kansas, Maryland, Georgia, and Florida -- and when I go back, I try to fit all of those destinations into a two week span so I can see everyone, which takes an enormous amount of planning & coordination, is expensive & exhausting.
So this is definitely the worst time for me so far... :\\\'( I'm usually always lonesome for my old friends, in need of new ones over here, & I'm struggling with the job search, but I've been coping with all that alright, I guess.
It's been a year with so many highs & lows...DH & I are very happy together, we had a lovely wedding day last August & have taken some great holidays together (to the USA, Amsterdam, Antwerp & around Spain), just bought our house - a first for both of us. Just wish the rest of my new life would start falling into place, and Grandma was really special to me.
But I know she's not there any more & goodness knows - she waited more than 31 years to be reunited with her beloved husband in the grave. She was always wondering why it wasn't 'her turn' yet & survived in the past 4 years, despite her advanced age, pulmonary heart failure, pneumonia twice, a broken pelvis, etc. She lived by herself in her own home until she was 101 -- when I had to put her in a nursing home 'cause my mom (grandma's daughter) was already in the nursing home, leaving no one left to look after grandma. I'm glad that grandma finally made it to where she wanted to be for a long, long time & there's loads of folks on the other side who I'm sure have been waiting for her -- everyone she ever knew as she outlived all of them! (if you believe in such things) She outlived her husband, all of his siblings, all of her own siblings except one (she was the oldest of 8 or 9 children), two of her own children, all of her friends, on & on. Born in 1900, as a young girl, she drove horses behind a plow on her dad's Kansas farm, saw one of the first airplanes land in a Kansas wheatfield, helped raise her brothers & sisters, got courted by my granddad, her childhood sweetheart, in a horse & buggy, eventually learned to drive in a Model T, raised her family during the Great Depression, sent brothers & son off to Europe and the Phillippines in WWII, saw a man land on the moon, took her own first airplane ride at the age of 92, and everything else in between. And the great stories! Someone once asked her if she wouldn't like to have an old washboard to keep as an antique -- she nearly laughed herself off her chair & said she was never so happy as the day she got to throw the damn old washboard away because she finally had an automatic washing machine & didn't care if she ever saw another washboard in her entire life! She was truly amazing. Still, my world feels a little less cheerful without her in it.
