A One Way Goodbye

     I'm not writing this post for attention and/or likes in the form of sympathy. I'm writing this blog because I have to get this off my chest and release the pressure build up that's inside of me.

     I am currently at home packing to return to school from easter break for my last two weeks of sophomore year. Being home is always a great thing for me to experience in my opinion. I love my family to death. Unfortunately I this break took a sour turn 3 days in. Sometime between the 11 pm hour of this past Friday (4/18/14) and the 7 am hour of this past Saturday (4/19/14), my grandmother suffered a massive stroke. Unfortunately, we didn't get the results of how bad the stroke actually was until this morning, Easter Sunday (4/20/14), when the test results came back and my parents had a chance to speak with the doctor.
     Since finding her post-stroke, she has been stable, but unresponsive. She is unfortunately from here on out brain dead and now we must wait until her relatively healthy body, for someone her age, depreciates to where her mind now is. The doctors said that all we can do now is just make her as comfortable as possible as we wait for her to move on.
     Here's where my blog title gains more relevance though. It was our year in the family to hold Easter at our house for all of the relatives. We didn't want to not still do that, especially given the short notice, so my sisters and I did our best to play host today while my parents were at the hospital. Fortunately, they were able to leave for a while and spend sometime with us, and the rest of the family, celebrating easter. Given it was a celebration, everyone was drinking, my parents included. So my dad asked if I would be his and my mother's D.D. back to the hospital. Of course I said yes and did so. When my mother became aware that I was taking them back, she said "Oh good, it'll give you a chance to say goodbye before you go back to school".
     And that's when it hit me. This was GOODBYE FOREVER. It hadn't really sunk in until she said anything and then it really sunk in once we got the hospital, and realized that once I said goodbye, there would be no reply. The hardest goodbye is a one way one. Now here I am packing my stuff for school and dabbling in the blog post and can't get it out of my mind: sometime in the next week or so while at school, my phone is going to ring, and it's going to be a family member on the other line, probably my father, and they're going to say, "You're grandmother is gone." How does one clear their head from such an inevitable thing. I know it's going to happen, but I can prepare for it, and yeah I said goodbye, but it lacked such closure and felt so forced. You can never prepare this part of life, even when you know any day could be your last or the last for someone else you love.
     DON'T EVER TAKE GOODBYE FOR GRANTED!