Last night, my parents told me that my Grandma is suddenly very ill with pancreatic cancer and may only make it another 2 months.  If that.  Hospice is being called in, she is being made comfortable and, just like that, my last Grandparent and my girls only Great- Grandparent will go to meet her maker.

I sat stunned, unable to comprehend the news.  My Grandma is strong.  The backbone of my Father’s family.  The matriarch with the beaming smile, the delicate laugh, and the twinkling eyes.  It is hard to imagine her weak and unable to function like she likes to.  I kept saying, “But we just saw her and she was fine!”

They kept saying, “I know.”

She really was just here.  Not six weeks ago.  She’d flown in from California, stayed a week with my parents, and traveled four hours in one day to come see me and my girls.  She wanted a McRib sandwich for lunch and reveled in it’s greasy goodness – according to her!  She sang with my girls, hugged them, played games with them, and smiled the entire time she was here.  She talked of her bowling league, which she was very active in, her life in California, and, aside from some achy joints and ears that could not hear as well, she seemed OK to me.  Happy and calm.  With a lot left to do.

When my husband and I were discussing the suddenness of her diagnosis last night, we wondered how we got to be this age.  With our third family loss looming in less than six months, Tony’s father, his Uncle, and now my Grandma, it seems that life is flowing way too fast, people are leaving way too soon, and we are too young to see them go.  And we certainly are too young to be explaining to our children that their beloved family members are leaving to go live with Jesus.  I am still just a girl, after all, playing cards and telling her all of my adventures.  Not paying close enough attention to hers.

But, I suppose, we are there.  And learning the hard way that time is fleeting, lives are too short, and there are never enough words to express regrets…  and love.