It's a tough phone call to get. The one that says a piece of you heart is now on the other side of Heaven.

You sit and try to rack your brain with answers to the questions "well what if I would have," or "is she really," or "but when did she". You quickly become overwhelmed by the fact that there's nothing you could have done, that they really are gone, and you just have to accept it.

It took me four and a half hours to actually say the words "my grandmother died" out loud and even then they still didn't seem real.

It's hard because I don't think death is something we will ever fully understand. Whether someone has been sick for years, too young, or maybe they're older it's always hard to accept that people die. We just don't understand it's purpose or why it has to happen and we honestly may never understand it.

We want the people we love to live forever or at least until our time comes. We never want to have to say goodbye and sometimes we don't really get that chance. We want to be able to tell the people we love them as often as we can because we don't understand that one day we won't be able to call them just because.

Heaven isn't just a phone call away and that, to me, is miserable.

I truly hate that I will never get to hear my grandmother say "I know you're not a baby anymore, but you'll always be my baby."

I hate that she died almost exactly 5 years after my grandfather.

I hate that she will never cook me breakfast again.

I hate that I will never hear her say that I'm her favorite out of all of my siblings.

I really, really hate that she's gone.

BUT

I love that I knew her.

I love that I was able to experience life with her.

I love that I was able to runaway to her house whenever I wanted when I was a kid.

I love all the sandwiches she made me.

I love all the times she took me shopping.

I love all the times she joked about how slow she walked.

And above all of that, I love that she claimed me.

She and my grandfather were the perfect examples of Christ because they claimed our whole family even though they didn't have to. They loved us even though they didn't have to. They fought for us and with us even though they didn't have to.

Because of them I am a better person.

Because of the love they had for others this world is better.

Death is a really hard thing to grasp, and even though it took me a while to admit that she's no longer just a phone call away I'm glad that for 21 years and 2 days she was. I'm glad that I can still say she was my grandmother and that I got to love her for as long as I did.