It'll Be Okay

I was up doing homework last night around midnight when suddenly I just knew something was wrong. I wanted to jump up and run everywhere and yell and tell everyone who would listen that something was wrong and we all needed to watch our backs because something big and bad was coming. But instead, I texted my mom and asked her if everything was okay. And for that moment, it was.

But around three o'clock this morning, my grandma passed away.

I love my grandma. She watched me from the time I was just a little baby until I was about 12 or 13 and I could finally stand to be in the house all by myself. She loved to buy me things, which sounds silly, but it was her way of making me happy. She's always been there for me, and I love her like crazy.

My grandma went through a lot of pain in her life. She suffered from depression, diabetes, arthritis, dementia, and, most recently, heart problems. For the past little while, she had been struggling to breathe, even just for little things like getting up to use the restroom.

The last time I saw my grandma, I was at the fair and got to push her around a little bit in her wheelchair. I even took a few pictures of her smiling, which is pretty impressive (the pictures, I mean). But she was feeling really sick the day of my birthday party, so I wasn't able to see her that day.

The last time I talked to my grandma, I had to try and convince her that my grandpa really would give her a blessing and that the only reason he hadn't was because she hadn't asked. Whoever invented the term "stubborn as a mule" never met Marilyn Jones, I can tell you that right now. I told her that yes, Grandpa would give her a blessing, trust me, it'll be okay, and we ended our phone call.

The last thing I heard about my grandma was that she had gotten a blessing from my grandpa on Sunday.

This year has been hard. I won't deny that. Things happen in life that we can't control, or that we don't want to step up to and take control of. But things happen. Good things, bad things, it doesn't matter. Because things happen.

Am I going to miss my grandma? Like crazy. I'm going to cry every day for the next little while because I'll miss her so much. I'll be walking around campus with a stuffy nose and red eyes, and people won't be able to figure out why. And that's okay. I can cry because I'll miss her. I can do that. It's my way of showing how much I'll miss her. It's my way of coping with it.

But I'm not crying because she's gone. She's not gone. Her spirit may not be in her body anymore, but it hasn't ceased to exist. I'm sad for me, not for her. Now, she's not bogged down by everything that went wrong with her body. She's able to love life again. She's able to be with all of us now. She'll be there the day I take out my endowments. She'll be there the day I get married. She'll be there to hand off every single one of my future children to me, and I hope she'll be able to tell them not to worry and not to be scared because they have a good person waiting to be their mom. She's going to be able to think clearly, without the pain, and she's going to be able to take every step with her family.

The gospel is true, guys. It's so true. One day, I'll be able to tell my grandma how much I've missed her, and I'll be able to tell her how many times I knew she was there. I have no doubt in the plan of salvation. It's real, and it works. This isn't some bedtime story made up by a whack-job American. No. This is the gospel. This is from God. He is there watching over all of us, and Christ is there right next to Him, holding all of us up whenever we need it. They can't lie; everything that's ever been promised to us will happen in time. And I don't know that I've ever been more grateful for that than I am right now.

I've been able to feel my grandma here while I'm writing this. I think she wants to let me know that she loves me and that it's okay to cry because she'll miss me too. I've also felt divine love and peace, and had a sense that everything will be okay.

And because God tells me, I believe it.

~Kylie