Grandma made it to heaven today. My aunt had texted earlier and said the nurse had been there in the morning and said she likely wouldn’t last three days. Her vitals were worse and breathing had become labored and shallow. She texted me a video mid-morning and I knew that was look. Another video came shortly after with even a more changed pattern of breathing. At some point she would breathe and be done.

In a series of events that we could not have planned or even imagined, it ended up being myself, my aunt, and two of my sisters on the phone. One was through Messenger and the rest of us were on Facetime with Darlene who was at Grandma’s side. I got to talk to her again and I poured out my heart, thanking her for teaching us the Bible and taking us to church, and for everything else she’d done in our lives.

We sang to her. In the later years of her life she would often bring up the hymn When We All Get to Heaven. I don’t know where this hymn came from, nor do I remember ever learning it. So all these times she’s wanted to sing it I have not known the words, though I can now sing the chorus. After that we sang Amazing Grace, the verses all out of order. But as we finished the ending words, she took her last breath and left.

And somehow we were all in awe. Is she breathing? Did her heart stop? Can you feel any heartbeat? In a moment she was gone, and we stared, and then cried. We tried getting a hold of Mom, then another sister, then another. They’d been on the phone together and had missed the original calls. But then we were all there and stayed on the phone for a while. My brother picked up from work. Another couldn’t at the time.

The boys were with me for school. I said okay boys, we’re going to call my grandma and say our goodbyes, thinking we’d do so then wait for the news. We had missed my aunt’s passing after trying to be there, and yet with God’s divine way we had been there for Grandma’s. I’m so grateful. And now what she’s been talking about for years has finally happened. She has joined the church triumphant beholding Jesus who loves her.