Relief

A few days ago I was thinking about my great-grandmother. I never met her, she died before I was born. But I've grown up with stories of her and have seen the love in my grandmother's face when she talks about her, as well as the tears that still come from losing her mother. I thought of how her children and her husband must have missed her. How they must have cried when she died.

My great-grandmother was the first generation to come to the US from Mexico. She traveled across the country with her husband. She worked on the family farm to help feed and clothe her family. And she had twenty-one children. However, because this was many years ago and medicine wasn't what it is today and because she and her husband were dirt poor farmers, eight children died. Eight. Some were born too soon. Some caught pneumonia when they were toddlers. And they were gone. And I have no understanding as to how she coped with that except for the fact that she had to. There was no other choice.

And when I think of her dying in her eighties surrounded by children and grandchildren and with her husband at her side, I can't help but believe that she was happy. Happy that she had finished. That she had a full life. And that it was over. That she had survived and thrived and now she didn't need to any more. She could close her eyes, go to sleep, and wake up to eight shining faces that she had missed for so long.

I am looking forward to my life. I'm excited to see what's to come. I'm loving where I am right now. But I know that when the time comes, that I'll be happy. So happy to be done.