If you do not wish to be insanely depressed on your Christmas day you should not read this.

I had a couple of days ago to write about how I got home Friday evening instead of Friday morning because my flight was cancelled and they rescheduled everything so it took 7 hours to get home instead of the normal 3 and how I was body searched three times.  I’d give anything to be writing that post instead of this one.

I’ve spent pretty much every waking moment since Saturday at my Grandma’s bedside.  My father called my brother & I to inform us that it didn’t look like Grandma had long to live.  Saturday night I was supposed to go to a comedy club with my brother and a bunch of people as a late celebration of my birthday.  Instead, I spent the evening holding my Grandma’s frail hand, rubbing her forehead, giving her kisses and praying.  I also spent much of the weekend crying, as I am now.

Grandma was not completely there when I saw her, but she spoke some.  In between crying out, “Save me, Jesus!  Help me, God!  Please, help me!” and periods of seemingly no coherence she would come to and grasp her rosary and murmur an Our Father here and a Hail Mary there.  Her voice was weak.  You could hardly hear anything.  Not much came out, and it took awhile to realise she was praying, but she was.  I told her I loved her and she responded with, “I love you, too.”  I don’t know if she knew it was me — her eyes weren’t even open — but when it’s all said and done, that’s not even what matters.  What matters is that the last thing she said to me while she was able to speak was an expression of her love.

This evening my father & I left so he could take me to midnight Mass.  We got back at around 2.  My uncle turned the TV to the station with midnight Mass for my grandma.  She couldn’t see it, but he turned the volume on for her in case she could hear it.  Right after the priest (I’m not sure if she was listening to the Pope give midnight Mass or a local one) said, “The Mass is ended, go in peace,” she took a deep breath and passed away.

I think she could hear it.

I just found out, and I called my sister while my dad called my aunt and my brother to tell them.  I hugged my dad afterwards and ever since I haven’t really been able to stop crying.  I was close to my grandma.  She may be the sweetest person I’ve ever known, and now she’s gone.  Even when she stopped looking like herself, she was still one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever set my eyes upon.

I just… I don’t know what I’m going to do without her.  She was my only remaining grandparent.  I just feel like I’m slipping from everything.  I miss her so much already.  This all happened so quickly.  I wasn’t ready to let her go, and now I’m here alone and depressed.  To top it all off, I found out today that my LilyCat (who I loved more than words can possibly express) is no longer with us.  She is either dead or gone.  Dealing with both of these things on Christmas?  This Christmas is going to be anything but merry.  I don’t want to do anything and I couldn’t care less about gifts or anything else.  None of that matters.  The other day I found out my grades for the semester — the highest GPA of my college career — and I can’t even be happy about it.

She entered the world on Valentine’s Day and she left on Christmas.  We all figured she would pass on Christmas.  On Saturday she started to say, “I’m waiting…” to my uncle and then never finished.  We think she was waiting for Christmas.  Considering how important her faith was to her, I’d imagine that leaving this world for the next on Christmas was probably the best wish she could have granted.  Jesus is getting one hell of a birthday present.

I’ll write more later when I’m not sobbing uncontrollably.  I hope all of you have a nice Christmas.  Blessings to you all.