Sadness & Joy

My Mother-In-Law, who also happens to have been one on my very best friends for the last 25 years (only my MIL for the last 13 years - long story), passed away 29 July 2011 @ 1238pm.

We are all still in shock, even though we KNEW it was coming.  She had managed to hang on days longer than expected.  We were trying to figure out how to get there to be with her and had decided, due to financial issues, that only hubby could go.  Ultimately he is the most important one in who MIL needed to have there.

While making preparations for the trip, he was leaving in a few hours, the call came that she had crossed.

I was in the waiting room of a doctor's appointment when I got the news.  She quite literally crossed as I was leaving the house to go to my appointment.  I had called just an hour or so before I left.

I know that I can be more eloquent but it's late at night and it's been a heck of a day and the preceding weeks.

She had lived for 45 years with debilitating chronic pain, the last years it seemed as if every year she developed some new disease/disorder.  Her body was betraying her at every turn.

The joy I have is that she is now free of that.  She loves to dance and the last years she had difficulty walking...so at the moment i see her dancing.  She is in a sunny bright meadow, surrounded by butterflies, bubbles and dandelion fluff floating on gentle breezes...and she is dancing, she is laughing, she is happy and free of the burdens her health had created.

Times like this are the absolute epitome of bittersweet.

I need to try to rest.  I'm having a hard time with that since I've been calling the hospital every few hours, day and night, for the last weeks.  I keep reaching for the phone to check on her.

Darling, I love you and I miss you.

Dance, Laugh, Rejoice!