My last day with you

Would we do anything different if we knew it was our last day with someone we loved? I wouldn't have let you leave.......that would be the only thing I would have done different.

You had shared with me that morning a devotional out of the book "Jesus Calling".   You were so touched by it and you said that it really gave you a sense of peace as to how you were going to get through the next chapter of your life.  It was so perfect that we had it read at your service.  Did you know it was your last day? Did you sense something big was about to happen?  The last line in that devotion was "Remember that you have an eternity of trouble-free living awaiting you in heaven".

You were texting me right when the accident happened.  But I didn't have a sixth sense there was anything wrong.  I hopped in the shower.  It was your son's birthday and I was hurrying so I could go into town and pick up his birthday cake.

Getting that call that you had been hurt in a car accident was a total shock.  But it did not occur to us that you wouldn't be ok.  I was still waiting for the call to tell us where you had been life-flighted to when the knock came at the door.  I can not explain what it feels like to hear the words that your daughter didn't make it.  Those words still haunt me at night, they wake me up and won't let me rest.  How can that be????  We were so excited for you to come home from rehab and start living your life again.  You were you again, only better.  You were so excited for your second chance and you did not waste a minute of the time you were home those two short days. You played and spent time with your kids, you were all so happy to be together again! You made an appointment to get enrolled back in school. You bought new pants for your new job.  You went to a NA meeting and you were so happy to see your sponsor again.  I don't understand why you didn't get more time, why we didn't get more time.

But I will always treasure the memory of you standing in the kitchen with the sunlight behind you and I remember thinking how beautiful you looked, inside and out.  If I knew then that was my last time to look at you, I would not do it any differently.  I looked at you with love and total joy.  You were back, you were our daughter, sister, granddaughter again.  I just didn't know that you were our angel getting ready to fly home to heaven.  I didn't know it was my last look.

                                                   This is the last picture we have of you.
                                                    Taken the day you left rehab.
                                                           Kendra Dawn Lind Grant
                                                                    1987 - 2015