My Own Obituary for My Daughter

In 1975, I met a wonderful - not perfect - man.  We were eventually married in 1979.  He had two beautiful daughters from a previous marriage.  I have never had children of my own.  It didn't take long for his two daughters to twine their fingers around my heart.  I grew to love those two girls as though they were my own. 

They knew how I felt.  I never tried to hide from either of them that I thought of them as my own daughters.  Even after their father's drinking brought about our divorce in 1990, the girls were still a part of my heart.  Thanks to them, I have 5 wonderful beautiful grandchildren and 4 great-grandchildren. 

Through the years, we didn't visit each other very often because I did not want them to feel as though I was trying to put myself into a position where I didn't belong - between them and their father.  The older daughter and I lost touch with each other, and I have missed so very much sharing the times of her life.

The younger one, Sara, and I talked on the phone relatively often between her busy life as a registered nurse, doting mother and grandmother and wife and my own weird lifestyle.  I have never been one to go to bed early, get up early, and eat my meals at a certain time every day, and with the time difference between where we live, it wasn't always conducive to talking on the phone as often as we would both have liked.

Oh, how I will miss those telephone conversations.

My granddaughter-in-law called me tonight to tell me that there has been an accident and Sara, my beautiful daughter, has died.  I don't have any life-experience to fall back on here.  I don't know how I am to  handle all this.  All I know is that they want me there, so I must go.  And I have to rely on God to give me the strength to do the things I will need to do for them once I am there.

I know what Sara's children, Kacey and Coleman, are going through because I have lost my mother to death as well. I know just a touch of what Max, Sara's husband, is going though because when Sara's father died two years ago, she wanted me to be there for her, so there I was.  Even then, I couldn't deny that I still had feelings for him, so his death was not as difficult an adjustment as Max will have to go through, but still it wasn't as easy as one would have thought.

Even loving Sara as my own daughter, I know that she isn't.  I am not her mother.  Just her favorite ex-step-mother.  I have no idea what Sara's mother must be feeling right now.  I hope she will be able to rely on her faith and her husband for the comfort she will need.

Sara was 46 and very beautiful.  She knew I love her very much.  And somehow, I think she knows that I am grieving now.  I have already been able to thank God for the joy of her life, but even knowing that my faith in God is strong and will see me through this trying time isn't going to remove the grief of her loss.  It will temper it with the times we shared; our talks, our laughter, our sharing of ourselves.

I'm thankful to God for having placed her in my life.  And I'm thankful to God for welcoming her home now.

I hope by writing this I will begin to feel an acceptance of this tragedy that I know must surely come.  There have been times in my life when I have asked God to go through something for me because I knew I wasn't capable of going through it myself.  He always did and allowed me to follow Him  This is another one of those times when I need Him to go through this for me and let me follow Him.  I know I can't do this on my own.