*Today I’ve found out that my grandmother has died. The one who has been like a mother and father to me and my sister. To say that I am lost for words is an understatement as something else hurts me the most. She died on 1st of August but only today I find out . Why God? Why?*

*She has put my sister to promise that she will not tell me of her passing for at least several days after she dies. My sister respected her last wish.*

*The news of her death comes like a shock to me. The fact that my sister had to deal with everything on her own makes me feel powerless.*

*I  have often read stories of the moments when people were able to feel that their death was nearby. My grandmother has called my sister 2 weeks before, telling her that she wants to see her. What she told her is too personal to write here, yet the morning of 1st of august has found my grandmother dying at home, peacefully, in her sleep, at 7 in the morning.*

*When my sister told me these news todays my first feeling was an intense flood of warmth in my body followed by shacking. And then a shock. I started crying and told my sister to stay at the phone and let me cry in her company. We live 500 km apart.*

*There is an odd feeling that I have now. The idea is that knowing what I know now I would have wished to be able to tell my grandmother that, despite all of her shortcomings, I love her and I thank her for raising me. I feel now a very intense feeling of appreciation for life. I have my phone. I have my grandmother’s number. I could call now ...but there is no longer anyone there to answer…*

*As I am trying to just accept the loss and mourn this in my own way I realize that there is one thing we do not do enough of: telling people that we love them. The shock of losing someone followed by the fact that you have in your phonebook their number but no possibility to express your feelings anymore is something I can’t explain.*

*Writing all of these on Hive while tears come down my cheeks helps. It is somehow cathartic. I feel I lost a mother and a father in the same time. I did not feel I had a mom and a dad while growing up, I just had her, my grandmother. She was all I knew. The feeling of her passing weights heavily in my soul.*

*I look at the phonebook. I see her number. But there is no longer anyone there ...*