Dear Great Grandma

My dearest Great Grandma,

In the last few weeks you have been in my prayers every night. I have prayed that your own prayers would be answered if it be the Lords will and that he would give me the strength to accept His decision. I know the desire of your heart was to be taken into the arms of Heaven. I respect your wishes at the age of 103. I know that you are so deserving of returning to your Heavenly Father, to have a chance to rest and be at peace. I also know that Him along with others in our family have been standing there waiting for you with open arms. You must be so excited to see your loving husband and son again. I am deeply saddened that you have left us Grandma, but I know that I will see you again some day.

I want to let you know that you have been such a great inspiration to me. You have a strength like no other that I know. I never once heard you talk badly about anyone. You had such a wonderful sense of humor. When people would jokingly pick at you, you always had something to come right back with in good humor. I love your old fashioned ways. Ways that have been lost. You were the true definition of a "Perfect Housewife". The smell of fresh bread baking in the oven, yummy jars full of homemade candy and cookies, a sweet smile to welcome anyone at the door and a warm, cozy, clean house to relax in. I remember you getting on to me one day about not having dinner ready for Jason and at the time I blew it off because that is just not how things work now days, but shortly after that I started to feel guilty because I knew in my heart that that is what a good housewife does. She takes care of her sweet husband everyday. On top of all of this I have never heard you complain about your duties of being a women, a wife and a mom. You were always so happy about the role you played in this life. You finished your service to others with joy always. This is what the Saviour teaches.

I am so grateful that I had the opportunity to serve you this last year when you stayed with us. It gave you the chance to get to know my sweet Trevor even more. It makes me happy to know that he got to know you also. How many people get the chance to meet their Great Great Grandma. I am sure not many. I so loved and will deeply miss all of your stories of growing up. It will never cease to amaze me how awesome your memory was at 103. I feel now that I may have taken advantage of my time with you then. Please never think in the life after that you were a burden here to any of us. We love you so much and we were always grateful to do things for you. Your company was always welcome.

I never really new your closeness to the Lord because it has always been a really private thing in our family it seems. Somehow I know though in my heart that you had a very good relationship with our Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ. I remember the day of my baptism 7 years ago when you shed tears as I came up out of the water. I will never forget that because it was a testimony to me that what I was doing was right and that you supported me in my decision even though it was in a different church than yours. You had a perfect understanding of how Christ works and not how the world wants him to work.

I do have one regret Grandma and I pray you will forgive me. The last time I saw you was 2 weeks ago. As I have been reading my scriptures, every night a verse kept coming up over and over, talking about visiting the sick. I have been telling myself this whole week that I needed to come see you. So today I made plans that right when I was done with work I would borrow moms car to come see you. And sadly at noon I got the call that you had made your way to Heaven. I was only hours too late. Oh how I wish I would have had the chance to give you one last hug, heard one last story, held your hand just once more and saw your smiling face as your "Little Man"(Trevor) sat next to you. I could ask why, but then I am just being selfish. I love you so much Grandma and I will so miss you everyday. Please send your love from Heaven. Please keep us in your prayers and watch over us. And remember that your family hear on earth has a deep and eternal love for you.

I end this letter with my Love,
Tiffany

P.S. Out of the hundreds of games of SkipJack that we played together, I only won twice. Did you let me win? One day I will find out and maybe we can play again:)