What Matters Most

I know I only have four followers, but to you four I ask you to please tell your loved ones how you feel about them, regardless of how long or short it has been since you last did so.

They need to hear it, and you need to express it.

My thoughts and prayers are with my Opa tonight. I received tragic news that doctors have found stage 4 cancer cells in his liver that have spread to his brain. Needless to say, his time in mortality is coming to an end. Part of me wishes that he will soon be relieved from the pain and misery he's currently in. And another part of me, the selfish part, wants him to hang in there until all of my family members, including myself, can say goodbye. And then there's yet another selfish part of me that grieves knowing that my husband and children will never get to meet him. Since I was a little girl, I hoped that my family would be able to meet him, at least once. Maybe my children will be there to greet him when he passes to the next life?...that's a comforting thought.

I anxiously look forward to visiting the temple tomorrow, for that is where the veil between this world and the next is the thinnest. I've never experienced death this personally before, and it's going to take heaven's help to stay strong through this.

Opa is one of the most distinctive people I have ever known. He's stubborn as heck, pridefully opinionated, and passionate. One thing I love most about my Opa is his laugh. Not the belly laugh he exudes when he's baffled by someone's stupidity, and not the silent one he uses when he's laughing at something clever Oma said from the kitchen. I love his loving, lighthearted laugh that escapes from him when his granddaughter gently tugs at his heart-strings, but he's too manly and prideful to admit it. I'm beating myself up for never taking a video camera with me to California to capture his fiery personality and life stories forever. He likes food, cleanliness, debating, yard work, sports, consistency, and being right. I think he is quite remarkable. It's going to take missionaries as high strong as he is to convert him to the gospel...they'll probably have to be German.  

I love you, Opa, and I'll miss you; but I know that we will meet again.