trying to prepare myself and my dad for his sister's death. That alone was overwhelming.

My family is everything to me.

On Christmas Day, I was so happy to see my dad enjoying the day even with the heavy sadness of his sister's passing lingering. I bought him a roku for Christmas (which he will probably never use) to give him a cool gadget to focus on for Christmas. I was setting up the roku for him when my other aunt called.

She and my cousin (her daughter) called us on speaker to get details on funeral services and to let us know they would be there. My aunt said she loved us and assured us that she would be there tomorrow. Somewhere in the conversation, my cousin looked at my aunt/her mom and said "she fell asleep again." My aunt was one of those people who would nod off if they were sitting still or watching tv and then wake up a few moments later and join back in the convo like nothing ever happened. Anyway, we/my cousin (her daughter) thought that that was what she was doing. So the convo ended because she fell asleep.

5 minutes later, my cousin called back to say that she hadn't fallen asleep and that she wasn't breathing. EMT was there trying to entebate (sp) her. I'm pretty sure she had already passed away at that point, but they took her to Emory-Crawford Long. We met the ambulance there. When we got there, the family liaison told us that they could not save her life. They took us to a room with concrete cinder-block walls, and they told us they'd allow us to spend time with her before they took her to the morgue.

They wheeled her body in and we had prayer service for her. By the time the night ended, there were about 15 of us in that concrete room.

We cried, prayed, cried and lifted her up. Then we went back to her home to clean up the mess the EMTs made trying to save her and wash dishes from the Christmas dinner gathering.

On one hand, she died the way that any of us would want to die: on the celebrated birthday of her Lord and Savior, surrounded by her loved ones, happy and in just a snap of God's fingers. She was peaceful and happy.

Still, those of us who are left are beside ourselves in grief and shock.

_______________________________________

"I'm gonna treat OKP better during the 2nd half of the year. So, expect new things and better dialog."
~Case_One