She waited for them

Sorry but damnit I’m going to talk about her

Twin nieces pictured above with gma, the last photo is a photo I’ll cherish forever because it shows so much love. Girl with the blue eyeshadow is my SIL and I’m holding her baby. CW/TW: death of a family member/death details.

I miss her. I miss our late night talks, I miss her face lighting up when I would hug her. I miss her voice, and I’m scared that I will forget what it sounds like.

I will really never ever forget what happened in the moments of her death, to me at the time I didn’t realize. But tonight I’m going to give myself a little credit. It’s been brought up about a million times by family members so I’ll acknowledge it. I faced something I was horrified of facing, which was her death. It was coming, we knew it, and I was still scared of watching it.

When we knew she had minutes left, we gathered around her and stood quietly. I think my next actions comforted her and I both, because I forgot about all the people in the room and how I hated being the center of attention and how I feared watching her die and I asked for help to take the railing off of the bed so I could sit with her and hold her hand and rub her head. Show her affection so that she wouldn’t feel like she was physically alone. I looked back one time and saw an entire room of people packed in and holding eachother staring at me and I didn’t give a single crap. I wasn’t moving or stopping until she was gone.

she kept fighting, fought like hell. a long moment passed by before I felt like she was waiting on the babies. And yes, it was literally just a feeling.

She loved them so much, and I don’t know how death works but I felt like she knew they weren’t in the room.

So I asked to bring me the babies, and I put a baby in my lap and then grabbed her hand again as baby cooed and talked. Seconds later, she stopped fighting and took her last breath while her hand was in mine. She WAS waiting on them. Everyone witnessed that and a family member even confronted me about having a gift, but I think it may have been because I knew her SO well and I knew that if she was any bit cognitive she was not going to leave without saying goodbye to them, and that she’d be stubborn as hell until she could. When she died a new strength in me was born, and I don’t know what it is. But this is me acknowledging it.

I hope she is in peace, seeing beautiful sights and hearing beautiful sounds.