dear grandma

Twinkling eyes & laughter lines.
They were still there.
But this time she was hooked up to IVs and had a tiny river of blood pulsing into her veins.

My lola (grandma).
My sweet, sweet lola.
She is the force behind my dorkiness, learned morals of loving others & most dominantly, my hairiness. :( :(
Not all of her great qualities stuck with me..I truly still am a stubborn & wayward kid, but someday, I hope to be as tender-hearted as she is.
She's raised my brothers & my cousins since we we were little poop-a-looping chubby plumps.

Strength has been her teammate ever since, but for the past few days, its been a long-lost friend.
She got admitted into the hospital on Saturday & they discovered that she had internal bleeding.
They're still waiting to give her a colonoscopy, but need to get her heart rate a little bit more stabilized.
Its been years since I last saw her cry, but yesterday, the tears came out from their bursting wells.

"I had to be strong for my kids"
"I had to "be strong for my family"
Those words always sounded like foreign phrases to me.
...If you feel a certain way, why can't you just express your true emotions? Right?

Yesterday as I looked into your piercing eyes, silently, desperately, wishing you were back home and feeling better, I had to be strong for you. You didn't say a word but the way you held my hand and begged with your stare to rescue you somehow made me wish I could take you away. 


You would see my sadness, and your heartbeat would quicken.
A slight frown and you would get anxious. 


'please try not to talk about anything that would increase her pulse..we need her to be calm' said the nurses.. 

So came the hardest smile to muster & the phrases made sense.
We have to be strong for you. 

I've never had to do that for anyone. 


I guess now is the time. Get better soon, lola. Lord knows we still need your magic glue of love around. But I'd completely understand if He would want to hold your hand in person. Up there, you wouldn't need some strangers' blood running through your veins. There, you wouldn't cry anymore. There, your heart could flutter with joy & you wouldn't have to worry about quickened pulses or any of that nonsense. You'd be where God's always wanted you to be: right by Him :)

 I wouldn't trade that for the world either..

get better soon. 
xoxo.