An era is over

I'm staying at my grandparents house for the first time since my grandmother died last August. All my life I've stayed at my grandparents and awoke to sounds of plunking around in the kitchen and probably the smell of coffee. My grandparents have always been early risers and the older they've gotten been tinkers in the kitchen. Often we would chuckle as they both chatted in their respective corners of the kitchen and neither seemed to hear the other.

My grandmother died very suddenly from heart failure last year and none of us was expecting or prepared for anything of that nature. Other than a little high cholesterol we had no idea. As we always say, you can never be prepared.

Each time I've left their home for the past 10 years or so, I've wondered if it was the last time I'd see one of them. Someone else in the family has regretted their decision to live in a city away from everyone else, but I've tried to look at it as how fortunate they were to get to follow their hearts.

I don't necessarily regret the time we didn't spend together, but the loss of opportunity to make more memories. I struggle with the guilt of not being "there" wherever that might be since I am living mostly overseas for our work. But more than all of that, I just struggle with the bitter absence of breakfast sounds knowing that it will never be the same and yet rejoicing that I am so fortunate to have had my grandmother until I was 41 years old. I am learning to savor what I do have and have had, even while I swallow my tears.