On our weekly routine of visiting my great grandmother, I sense that something is quite right. I can tell by the look on my dad’s face.
Once my dad finishes talking with the nurse, I ask, “Dad, what’s wrong?”

He replies, “She isn’t doing too good today, but she’s sleeping right now so try not to wake her.”

As I walk into her cold, dark nursing home room, I stare at the ninety pound woman I barely recognize anymore, quietly resting her eyes.

I bluntly ask, as if I have no manners, “Is she dead?”

“No,” my mom says, “but she doesn’t have long.”

I intently listen to the nurse speak with my parents as we walk into the hallway. They converse in the hall for no more than fifteen minutes, when I run back to Grandma’s doorway in slight panic. The frantic beeping of her heart rate monitor frightens me. As I approach her door, I hear the nurse running in behind me.

I circle around asking, “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Is everything okay?”

After a few minutes of heart pounding anxiety and no answers from anyone, my mom, trying to hold back her tears, sadly responds, “Grandma just passed away in her sleep.”
“But,” I cry, “I didn’t even get to say good-bye!”
Trying to cheer me and herself up, Mom explains, “She is happily in Heaven where she feels no more pain. Yes, Grandma is gone, but we will all see her again someday.”

As I try to remain brave and keep myself from breaking down, I turn and watch my dad, the strongest man I know, let a single tear fall and hit the ground.