When all is said and done ...

Well, it's been one month since my Cousin, April, passed away suddenly of a massive stroke. I keep trying to put it all together in my mind, but I find myself unable to simply grasp the entire reality that she is gone. The days move along and I suppose that somewhere in the back of my mind I am still waiting for my cell phone to ring with that ridiculous ringtone with the dramatic music that I picked out for her ... "Oh no! It's April calling! What does she want?! What does she want?!!". I can't seem to find the ability to remove her number from my phone. I suppose that I am holding onto some residual hope left over from her final moments on life support. It seems ridiculous as I write this, and yet my phone remains next to me ... untouched.

There are a million things that I could write about April. Her life was a mixture of many different elements, both good and bad, that made her into the complex individual that she was. And it was the life that she had experienced, with it's disappointments mixed with middle age, that made her choose to live the final days of her life courageously facing her future as an individual with only God and herself to answer to. Two days before she collapsed onto her bedroom floor, she bravely embraced the possibilities that existed beyond where she was in  life by packing her belongings into her Dodge Caravan and going home. Things had changed over the 28 years since she had left, and her Mother wouldn't be there to greet her when she came back, but it was home...  God had blessed her with this second chance, her Dad was there, and that was all that mattered.

Two days before she died, her Son, Ricky, and I went out early to help her pack her van. She had carefully and selectively packed things that she knew that she would need for now. In the beginning, we were uncertain that we get all of the boxes into her vehicle, but when we were finished, the van was perfectly packed and each box had it's place; with no room for another thing. When we finished and it was a certainty that she was leaving, she embraced Ricky and me. With a flood of tears flowing between all of us, she told us both how much she would miss us. As I held her, I cried with the thought that things would never be the same. She was growing up and would never again be that little girl with big hopes and dreams that had been in my life for 48 years. It was day one of the rest of her life. And as we drove down the road, the world felt different for me.

Four days later, As I stood in a back hall of the Hospital seeing her for the last time before she was taken for organ donation surgery, 48 years of memories, laughs, and tears flooded my mind. Truthfully, the entire event had been an emotional overload for me. As I looked down at her, there was a part of me that acknowledged that there was a purpose in this loss and that God is ultimately in control of it all. As the Doctors and Nurses pushed her onto the elevator and the doors closed, the weight of no longer being able to share anything with her landed squarely on my shoulders, but I knew that she was finally where she wanted to be: with her Savior that she had tried so long to serve and the Mother that she missed so much.

I could sit down and spill a million things about April's life and what she has experienced, many things that I alone know about. In each of our lives there are an abundance of moments that aren't necessarily good or pleasant, things that we would just as soon forget, and it was no different for April. However, I choose to put all of the bad aside and to focus on the good. As it is with all of us, April wasn't perfect. There were things that she did and said that weren't always positive. I but I know that ultimately, deep down inside, April was still an innocent and caring little girl looking and longing for unconditional love, and trying to find happiness along the way. Despite her imperfections, I have found that forgiveness and acceptance are the two best things that I can extend to her memory, and the things that help me to remember how wonderfully fun and loving that she really was.

I have learned that when someone dies, and everything is all said and done, it is the little things, those little imperfections and habits that you mentally catalog with all of the good memories that help you to remember what a wonderfully unique person they were ... unlike anyone else that you have ever known... and that make you thankful to God that you were able to share the planet with them during your lifetime.

I never considered April merely my First Cousin, I loved her as my Sister and my best friend... I miss her. I can't even begin to tell you what I will do without her.