I lost one of the most important people in my life this summer. It was by far the worst few months of my life thus far. I have never felt so completely lost. My Grandma Myrna was taken to the emergency room toward the end of May with a bad headache which ended up to be a brain aneurysm. She was taken to Sioux City and I happened to be in town so I was the first family member to the hospital. I am so glad I was there to hold her hand. I had just spent an evening with her the last time I was in Anita and we had a great time. We even talked about her health and how I wanted her to take care of herself because I needed her. For the most part her health was fine which is why this whole thing was quite a bit harder on me. I was unaware that brain aneurysms are little time bombs waiting to ruin your life. She ended up having brain surgery and after the surgery it was downhill from there with lots of nights in the hospital hoping that she would just wake up. At the same time she was in the hospital I was starting my graduate classes at BV. I lived in the dorms and had classes Monday-Friday. I have never been so stressed. I felt like everything was crashing in around me. I wanted nothing more than to be home with my family, but instead I was sitting in class just waiting for the phone call. That phone call came on June 5.
Since that time I have been attempting to deal with missing her all the time. I don't know if it's just me and my crazy emotions but I still have times when I just break down. I realize that life is unfair and for the most part I have had a pretty great life, but I just really don't understand why I couldn't keep one grandparent. There are so many people who have all of their grandparents still and I could just have one? I want to be able to call her and talk about the first day of school. I miss her voice.
She was an amazing Grandma. I am so grateful that I had her around to support me even when I got older. She came to all three of the plays I directed and was always interested in whatever stories I had to tell her. I will probably think of her whenever I see any quilt because that was such a big part of her life. This year for my 25 birthday I got a quilt that she and I had talked about for quite some time before I must have finally bugged her enough to get it! One of my favorite moments with Grandma Myrna this year was probably when I got her a little prank gift. She had always had this brownish/orange corn shaped candle that she got out for Thanksgiving and I told her that that was what I wanted of her stuff. So one year she gave it to me and since then it's been up year round in my house. This year I found another corn candle and gave it to her as a joke. We laughed a lot when she opened it! I think that it's a grandparent thing to tell their family to visit more and what I wouldn't give for her to pester me about visiting her more often now.
When we were going through some of her things we found a letter I wrote her when I was in third grade. I feel like at that point I did a fairly good job of telling her how much I loved her. I think it was supposed to be a poem...possibly.
"My Grandma: My Grandma is not like other Grandmas. She can make quilts. She is a very special Grandma. She can cook good food. She is very nice. I love my Grandma. If I did not have a Grandma I don't know what I'd do. - Love, Jessica"
I have in no way described enough about her to do her justice, but this is a little snippet of how much I miss and love her. Lots of people called her Grandma Myrna and I am so lucky to say that she really was my Grandma Myrna.
