I didn’t want to write this post. But I feel helpless right now, and this is the only thing I know how to do.
My mother-in-law passed away after a long battle with stage 4 Alzheimer’s. It was a hard twenty months for everyone, for more reasons than I can list. The waiting. The watching. The kind of pain that doesn’t really have a name, because it wasn’t pain so much as love with nowhere left to go. If you’ve been through this, you understand. If you haven’t, your empathy still means something to us.
What this disease took from us is horrible. But I find comfort in what this world gave us for so many years: Annie.
She was a woman who always had a smile on.
She was adoringly loud.
She was always happy to see you.
She spent her whole life looking for ways to help, with the house, with the kids, with dinner, with whatever needed doing.
She loved her grandchildren.
She loved her husband, her daughter, her son, her siblings.
She loved her plants.
She loved the ocean.
She loved. And we all loved her back.
It’s hard. Not unexpected, but still a punch in the gut. We miss her already. We won’t ever forget her, or the mark she left on each of us in our own way. She was a beautiful person with a heart big enough to love the whole world twice over.
Thank you, Annie, for your love, your friendship, and for letting me into your family.
Thank you for trusting me with your daughter’s heart.
Thank you for loving our kids with everything you had.
Thank you for the love you gave all of us without ever asking for anything in return.
Thank you for the smile that met us every time we walked into a room, the one that made us feel accepted, safe, and loved.
We’ve got it from here.