The hardest thing is saying good-bye to some one you love. It was hard to imagine having to say good-bye to my Mimi. It’s true we knew it was coming. She had had some health problems, but even then I wasn’t ready. We had celebrated her 80th birthday on June 9. I spent time tracking down pictures from the party and from family members that weren’t able to attend, so I make a little movie for Mimi. I had it ready for her at Thanksgiving, but she was sick and after a lot of debating my uncle talked her into going to the hospital. She really wanted to spend Thanksgiving with everyone at my Uncle Ernest’s. My brother, Sam drove down to see her that night, but since we had just gotten over croupe we didn’t go. I gave a copy of the movie to my Uncle Frank to show her when he visited that Saturday. I then started working on a photo book of all the pictures from the movie, we were going to visit her when we went down after Christmas and I wanted to have it for her then. I actually got it finished the night of the 7th, before I got the call she wasn’t doing well. After that I just couldn’t order it.
I had spent the morning being lazy and was trying to figure out what I was going to actually do that day when my brother called. I was a wreck at first. I didn’t know what to think or do. Things were a little confusing at first, but when everything was figured out the kids and I were heading to my mom’s. I told John in the midst of all the confusion that the feast day of Our Lady of Guadalupe was coming up and if I knew Mimi, she would wait for then.
Once I got to mom’s and we heard from my siblings that had went to visit Mimi Saturday afternoon, we made our plans to head there Sunday morning. She was in a rehabilitation facility so the kids were not allowed to see her and John and I didn’t think they should. We were just not sure they would understand it and wanted them to remember her the way she was this summer. They sat in the lobby and were awesome. It is days like that I am so thankful they know how to behave. They were able to stay quiet and made anyone laugh and smile who went down to hang out with them.
When we first arrived Mimi was sleeping. My aunt woke Mimi up to tell her I was there and she said “Hi, my Shelly. Where are my babies?” I told her they were in the lobby wanting to say hi and we were going to go feed them lunch while she slept some more and she fell back asleep. The rest of the day we spent in her room, in the lobby, or outside visiting with her and family. We prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy with her at one point and after she kept repeating “Jesus, I trust in You.” Even as she laid there she was teaching us how to be strong. Trust in Jesus. She had trusted in Him for as long as I could remember. When ever you would ask her if she would do something or go somewhere she would always say "God willing." We used to spend summers with her and every night no matter how tired we were we were sitting on the couch saying the rosary.
That day was very hard. It was even harder to load everyone up and head back home from Mom’s that Monday knowing the next time I head south it would be for a funeral. I kept wanting to just go back to Mimi’s. She means so much to me and has been such a role model for me that I just didn’t want to say good-bye. I could see how tired she was, but my selfishness wanted her to just hold on. She was moved back home as soon as they got everything ready for her. Then around 10:00pm on the 11th the nurse said it would be within a few hours. I prayed she waited for the 12th, the 11th was my Dad’s birthday and he was still overseas then. I continued to pray and stayed up waiting. At midnight the family that was with her planned on saying a rosary for her, I said another one. I tried to stay up as long as I could but after falling asleep in the middle of prayers and knowing I still had to get up with kids that morning I turned in sometime around 3 am. My phone went off before it was time to wake up with a message that at 5:15 she had passed. I was okay and found comfort in knowing that is was on Our Lady’s feast day. I know she was welcomed into Heaven by Jesus with His Mom by His side.
My heart will always be broken because a piece of it went to Heaven with you.
