I haven't talked much about my trip up north. I suppose I will now.

I got up there the 1st, and I guess I did write some about it while I was there. Melissa works a late shift, often not getting home until about 1 am. So we would stay up until 3 or 4 each night, watching movies or tv shows or SNL digital shorts on the computer. Each day while she was at work, I would go to visit my Grandma in the hospital, which was such a sweet time. We would just talk, sit quietly, watch tv, or take naps. Nothing special, really, but it was special because it was with Grandma. I really thought she was getting better at that time. Looking back, I don't know if it really seemed like she was, or if I was just blinded to the reality of it all.

On Saturday the 5th, a whole bunch of the family helped move some of Grandma's furniture from her house to the assisted living facility where she was to be moving the following Monday. That was a fun time with family, and the next day Grandma gave us money to go to Applebee's for lunch because she wanted us all to have that time together. It was a good time together, just talking, laughing, reminiscing, looking to the future, that kind of thing. Would we have wanted to know what was coming, to be prepared? I don't think so, but it is a bittersweet thing to look back on that time: such joy and happiness and reunion followed by sadness and good-byes.

Melissa and I talk about how that first week seems like an eternity ago, like another lifetime.

Monday Melissa and I took a drive up to see my other grandparents for the day, which was awesome. On the way over we did get a worried phone call from our Aunt Marietta, who had picked Grandma up from the hospital and said things didn't look like they were going well. It was on our drive home that night we found out she was re-admitted through the ER, non-responsive, and we were told that "this is it."

This is it. Those words hold a lot of tragedy and weight in this situation... it being the end. It being good bye, even if only for a little while. It being the end of an era in our family. It being the possible beginning to a new era, which has yet to be determined. It being no more Grandma and Grandpa in our lives. It being the task of letting go... which I have come to find the hardest part of grief.

Letting go of Christmases I once knew... walks in the neighborhood with Grandma and Grandpa... trips to the lighthouse, or Okefenokee Swamp, or Kingsley Plantation... peaches from across the river... walks back and forth down the street between cousins' and grandparents'... so, so many more memories. Yet, those things were already gone. I knew we were never going to have them back, but it seems that with Grandma and Grandpa being gone, there is a true end to it all. And I feel like if I let go, with that it's gone. I have to move on, and I don't want to move on. I would rather be sad and remember, than happy and forget. And I know we aren't supposed to forget, but I also know that I'm too sentimental and it's dangerous for me to get lost in memories.

I feel like I sound really dramatic. I sound like I'm drowning in my sorrows, and I suppose I kind of am. The reality is, I really don't know how to deal with grief at all. How do life and death exist simultaneously? It's as if there's a curtain between them, and at any given moment anyone can slip to the other side with no return. I'm so glad I can rest in the knowledge that these two wonderful people I love are in the presence of Jesus. That is the comfort in all of this. But the part I hate is that we who are left behind miss them so much. We have to go on without them, these wonderful people who have always been there. Life goes on. The world doesn't stop turning, but I feel like I've stopped functioning. I feel as though for three months I've lived like this, and I don't know how to get out of it. I've hardly even hung out with friends, except those I've known longest who let me just sit and cry.

On the upside, I did go and get my oil changed today. And I'm going to get some grocery shopping done here in a little bit, so life has yet to yield some productivity. I'm sad, but I know God is good. It doesn't mean He's going to fix my problems, or somehow give me a magical happy pill. I have to learn to lean on Him and trust Him in all of this... and maybe that is what I have to learn from it. "Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy. He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him." -Psalm 126:5&6 I'm praying that from this I will one day reap with a song of joy...