I know it hurts to say goodbye...

At 12:30am, Saturday, December 11th (our time) we received a phone call. Waking up to the phone ringing is never a good sign....and when we realized that we recognized the 920 area code we knew it was a VERY bad sign. On the other side of the line was our mom, crying and calling to inform us that our Grandma had passed away that morning (Friday, December 10). As much as we prayed that it was just a bad dream we were going to wake up from, we soon realized this was no dream. It was hard for us to believe that our 60-year old Grandma had died in her sleep. She was SO full of life. She could've easily run circles around any of us. But it was all real.

There is an ocean between us and the people we want to be with most right now...and at this moment that ocean seems to be getting wider and wider. To try and heal the pain (that, at the moment, seems will never go away) we are trying to think of the positive things. For starters, due to a family feud we didn't know our Grandma for the first half of our lives. But thanks to the amazing strength of our mother, the feud was forgiven and forgotten, and we were able to spend the last 10 years with her. They were an amazing 10 years and we thank God that we were able to have them. This last year, especially, our Grandma came and visited us more often than usual. We made so many memories, just in this past year, that we will be able to keep with us. Also, in cases such as this, you never really get to say goodbye. But we were able to, granted we didn't know it was going to be goodbye forever. But we were still able to tell her that we loved her and that we were going to miss her and that we better see her at the airport when we come back home. She was able to tell us how proud she was of us and that she loved us very much. So even though those goodbyes weren't meant to be forever, we will cherish them always.

Our Grandma was always so excited and interested in any adventures that we would come up with. She was especially supportive of our mission trip here and always told us how much she wanted to go with us.

Grandma: Hey, me and your mom were thinking of going to Portugal!
Allison: Really?
Grandma: Yeah, we wanna come visit your guys while you're over there!
Allison:....Grandma, we're going to the Philippines...
Grandma: Oh yeah. Thats what I meant.


Grandma: So the other day I was looking up plane tickets to Pakistan.
Allison: Really?
Grandma: Yeah, I wanna come visit you guys while you're over there!
Allison:....Grandma, we're going to the Philippines...
Grandma: Oh yeah. Thats what I meant.

Lol.....she was a remarkable woman and she will be GREATLY missed.

We would like to ask that you continue to keep us and our family in your prayers. Being apart during the holidays is hard enough...this will definitely make it more difficult. It also hurts that there will be one less person to pick us up at the airport in April....:'(

So we've decided to dedicate this post to our Grandma Ruth, one of the most supportive, loving, sassiest women that we've ever known. We love you SOO much. We pray that we may be able to see you again someday.

But the ending always comes at last.

Endings always come too fast,

They come too fast, but the past too slow.

I love you and thats all I know.

~Art Garfunkel

Grandma Ruth: 7/26/1950-12/10/2010

~Me and Her