This Momentous Day
Tomorrow is Independence Day, and we celebrate a wonderful thing - our freedom from tyranny and autocratic rule, our independence from a king who would govern us according to his whims. There will be fireworks, hot dogs, hamburgers, tubing trips, kids at swimming holes, kids (old and young) running around with sparklers when it gets darker, music, flags, and the rest of the whole nine yards.
Tomorrow also marks the one-year anniversary of the day my best friend, Gwendalyn, traded vows with her wonderful husband in front of her friends and family, and then spent the evening shooting off fireworks in her parents' backyard. By this time next year, my little niece, Sophia Belle, will be 9 months old, and she'll experience her very first 4th of July. With any luck, by this time next year, I'll have a full-time job with benefits.
Today, however, marks a day of independence for someone very near and dear to me - my great grandmother, Annette Simpson Long. Today, she is finally free of this world, and the pain that has plagued her for so long. For the past four or five years, she has been wasting away in a nursing home. To say that she was wasting is not an exaggeration - in the past three months, she became a skeleton of her former self. What held her here, I don't know, but I'm glad that it's finally released the hold on her. Honestly, seeing her in so much pain these past few weeks has been harder for me than her death. With her death, she is at peace, and I am, too. Now I pray that God grants me the strength to help my mother through this.
Goodbye, MawMaw Long. Happy Independence Day to you.
Tomorrow also marks the one-year anniversary of the day my best friend, Gwendalyn, traded vows with her wonderful husband in front of her friends and family, and then spent the evening shooting off fireworks in her parents' backyard. By this time next year, my little niece, Sophia Belle, will be 9 months old, and she'll experience her very first 4th of July. With any luck, by this time next year, I'll have a full-time job with benefits.
Today, however, marks a day of independence for someone very near and dear to me - my great grandmother, Annette Simpson Long. Today, she is finally free of this world, and the pain that has plagued her for so long. For the past four or five years, she has been wasting away in a nursing home. To say that she was wasting is not an exaggeration - in the past three months, she became a skeleton of her former self. What held her here, I don't know, but I'm glad that it's finally released the hold on her. Honestly, seeing her in so much pain these past few weeks has been harder for me than her death. With her death, she is at peace, and I am, too. Now I pray that God grants me the strength to help my mother through this.
Goodbye, MawMaw Long. Happy Independence Day to you.