She was beautiful,
Sitting there
Her skinny fragile hands knitting together a colorful cloth.

She had grown sick.
Too weak to move, she lay in bed all day long.
Rarely, she gained enough strength to sit up to watch TV or knit.

Moved to a care center,
Ripped out of her home
Her sickness caused her to be taken away from the very place she had grown.

Family gathered around,
Staring, holding her hands as if we could make her well again.
Maybe we were just trying to hold on to her.
We didn’t want to let her go

She spoke.
For the first time in days, she spoke whole sentences
Repeating words like “I love you” and “God is waiting on me.”

We knew where she would go
Once things came to an end
But we were never prepared, for her to give in
She was too strong to let go,
Holding on by tiny strings
Her breathing shallow
And her eyes closed
Yet never to re-open.

That dark day,
Checked out of school,
Running to the doors,
My mom embracing me, telling me the news.

Tears.
These are the only things I remember of my great grandma.
The rest, death has taken from me.
Ripping memories out of my hand like a stack of old pictures.