Letting Go

How do you let go of someone who has always been in your life? How do you say goodbye? How do you sum up your feelings in a neat letter to them? How to you accept the reality and be content with it?

A few days go I found out my Grandma Zimmerman doesn't have much time left. She's been in the hospital for a month and basically there is nothing more modern medicine can do for her. Short of artificially prolonging her life, they've done all they can.

So now we wait a week or so until she fades away. We just wait. It feels so wrong to just sit and do nothing, but there is nothing more we can do. Her wishes were clear, and living with tubes sticking out of every opening of your body is no way to live. Logically I know this to be true, but emotionally I don't want to let go.

I'm sad that I'll never be able to take any of our kids to meet their great-grandma. I'm sad that she won't be able to hold them. I'm sad that she won't be there when I go home, it just won't be the same. I'm sad that I can't send her letters anymore. I'm sad that my younger siblings have so few memories of her before she was sick. I'm sad that I'm not there to hold her hand and tell her that I love her.

The truth is these are all selfish emotions. These are emotions about me, not her. I try to remember that this is what she wants. She's been ready to leave this life for awhile now. She even misses cranky grandpa, so I guess she really is ready. She's content with her life and ready to go. She's been dependent on others for even the basic functions of life for so long. She deserves to be free from her frail body and mind. It's time for me to let go.