Five years ago, on August 26, 2012, my family was devastated by the unexpected loss of my grandma. At only 69 years of age, none of us were expecting for her to pass on so soon.

I remember the night it happened distinctly. My parents, my sister, and I were out shopping for some last-minute school supplies when we got the call saying she wasn’t breathing. I remember sitting in the grass outside of my grandma’s house with tears rolling down my face as an EMT worker said those five words no one ever wants to hear, “I’m sorry for your loss.” I remember looking up at the night sky filled with stars and asking God how He could take her from us, why now.

The very next morning, I got up and went to my very first day of high school. At the time people told me how brave I was to go to school after everything I had just experienced, but the truth was I was anything but brave. The truth was, I didn’t want to be surrounded by people constantly telling me how sorry they were or how much my grandma had meant to them.

I couldn’t take having to face the reality that I would never get to see, or speak, to my grandma ever again. Most importantly, I couldn’t face the reality that I would never get to tell her goodbye or that I loved her one last time.

So much has changed in the last five years without her. I went from scared, high school freshman to a mature, sophomore in college. Along the way, there have been some bumps in the road, but at the end of the day I made it here and that’s all that matters.

There are numerous occasions when I sit back and think of all the accomplishments or life events my grandma never got to see; proms, honor rolls, soccer games, graduations. Those are just the things that have happened so far.

I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve thought about how she will never get to see me graduate college or walk down the aisle or see her great grandkids. It hurts to know that at each of these events there will always be someone missing, but I know she is always watching over us and will be there in spirit.

If there’s one thing my grandma loved, it was taking pictures. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I saw her without a camera. Growing up, my sister, my cousin, and I weren’t always fond of her constant barrage of picture taking. But that first Christmas without her as we sat in the living room of my grandparents’ house opening gifts, I remember flipping through the last photo album she would ever make me.

Each year she made us multiple albums. Each album was individualized with hundreds of pictures from throughout the year, most of which had little notes beside them in her handwriting reminding us of what the picture was from. As I flipped through that final one I got to the part that she had been unable to complete.

Instead of photos, this page had a program from her funeral and her obituary. Following that were a few more pages of photos that my mom and uncle had filled in because they knew my grandma would’ve wanted us to get one last finished book from her.

As much as I sometimes hate to admit it, I miss having someone to go around and photographically document what’s going on in my life. Sometimes I find myself so preoccupied that I never find the time to do it myself, and I look back and realize that I will never get those moments back and now all they are is a memory. So granny, I know you aren’t reading this but I’m sorry for giving you attitude when you wanted to take a picture at some random statue that I will probably never remember the name of.

In the last few months, I have acquired the same passion for photography that my grandma once had. I know it’s something she would want to be passed on so that when I’m older and have kids they have something to look back on to remember the good times they had.

While I am nowhere near creating photo albums like she did, it is comforting to hear family members say that I have inherited the photography gene. Silly as it may seem, it’s nice to feel like there’s a piece of my grandma in me.

As school starts to get back into full swing I begin to think about how much my granny always encouraged us to do our best in school. Just like with almost everything else, she loved to celebrate our academic accomplishments with pictures and little parties at her house.

If I’m being completely honest, I think my grandma’s encouragement was one of the many reasons I did so well in school. Well, that and the fact that she drove me to the library at least two or three times a week when I was younger.

A lot has happened, and a lot has changed, in the past five years. One thing that will never change is the fact that I wish my grandma were still here with us, and with everything I do I want to make her proud.

So granny, if you could see me now I’d hope you’d be proud of all that I’ve accomplished, from getting into Carolina to where I am in my walk with the Lord. There’s not a day that goes by without me wishing you were here so I could hug you one more time or I could just have a conversation with you again. I know I wasn’t always the best to you, and there were a lot of times I had an attitude and you still found a way to love me.

Thank you for being such a great example of love and forgiveness to me. You showed me what it meant to bring a family together and to love everyone with everything that you were capable of. I miss you so much and I just want you to know that you are always going to be with me no matter what and that I’m living out my dreams because you encouraged me to pursue them.

If you could see me now I hope you'd see a person that you are proud of and that has grown into half the woman you were.

I didn’t get to say it nearly enough when you were here with us, but I love you granny. I can’t wait to see you again someday, but for now you’ll be in my heart. Thank you for all the smiles, laughs, hugs, I love yous, and trips. Thank you for loving me unconditionally and supporting me in whatever I did. Thank you for being you.

Until we meet again, rest easy granny.