It's Harder Than I Thought

When Grandma passed away on Wednesday morning, I had a decision to make.  Would I go BACK to Georgia for the funeral or not? 

If I hadn't just been down to say my goodbyes to Grandma, I would have gone no matter what.  Originally, the visitation and interment were going to be done in one day (and there is a 3 hour drive between the two cities) and it could have been as early as Thursday.  I didn't find out until almost lunch time on Wednesday that the service would be on Friday.  By 3 on Wednesday I found out there was a visitation added on Thursday night.

We had just gotten home late Monday night.  The drive was 15 hours give or take each way.  I had already missed a "week" of work and I get NO paid time off because I am only part time.  I couldn't fathom spending another 30 hours on the road - especially alone and crying part of the way.  And by the time I knew what the plan was?  Well, I would have had to drive all night to make it in time.  After working all day.

Plane tickets ranged from $620.00 (from the local airport where there was a layover involved) to $1078.00 (from the larger airport that is a 2.5 hour drive away and non-stop flights).  These were prices that were from a search engine and not bereavement fares - I know that could have knocked the ticket price down a little bit.  But a call to Del.ta on Tuesday in some pre-planning had let me know that bereavement fares weren't available on all flights.

And then for some reason I checked the weather report.  There was a winter storm that was supposed to be rolling in that would be bringing freezing rain/snow to my area and thunderstorms/tornadoes to Georgia.  And the layover airports for the cheaper and more convenient tickets were in cities that were also in the immediate path of this storm (Chicago and Detroit).  In fact, Chicago had already cancelled over 200 flights for Wednesday.

And then I would still have had to figure out the airport to funeral home portion of the trip which was probably going to consist of renting a car just in case my flight was delayed...

After quite a bit of deliberation, I decided that I would not try to make it.  I couldn't fathom spending that much money on a plane ticket to get stranded in an airport in another city AND STILL miss the funeral.

I felt peace with this decision.  I still feel like it was the right choice.

But remembering my Grandma all by myself while sitting at my desk and attempting to work has been harder than I thought it would be.

I wore the earrings and necklace that she had given me not too long ago.  I pulled up her obituary online and have kept it up on my second screen for the majority of the day.  And during the time the service was scheduled for, I took some time to sit quietly and remember her.  And I have cried A LOT today.  Crying about it by yourself is so much harder to do than when you have a loved one close by.

My mom called me on her cell phone and left the line open so that I could listen in on the grave side service.  My brother gave a lovely memorial speech and included memories from all of our family members and some of Grandma's close friends.  The preacher said some lovely words and scripture.  It Is Well With My Soul was sung by a lovely man from the church I grew up in.  And everyone joined together to say the Lord's Prayer and to sing a verse of Amazing Grace.  I also had several family members contact me throughout the day to tell me that they loved me and they knew I wished I was there.

It was so nice to be able to participate in some way even though I couldnt' be there.