I’m having a hard time finding gratitude in my grief.

After a very long three year battle with Stage 4 breast cancer, my best friend closed her eyes on October 1st and laid down her battle.  She had warriored. And I mean warriored. Her battle was brutal and painful and long. But she battled. Because she was a mother to a son she adored and a “Gan Gan” to twin grandsons who hung the moon and the stars in her world. She battled because that’s just who she was…a fighter.

We knew it was coming. Those who loved her had watched her battle through some dark days and also some brief highs. She had pushed herself to make the family beach trips and special occasions. She wanted to stay. But over her last couple of months she was slowly making her way more towards heaven than earth.

So I visited. Sometimes we chatted and laughed. Sometimes I sat as she slept.  I just wanted to capture all of those moments that my mind knew were fleeting but my heart didn’t want to accept.

And then she was gone. My best friend. My ride or die. The one who I knew I could take to a fight and she would have my back. The one who always had more faith in me than I had in myself. She taught me what it meant to be a true loyal friend.

She stood with me as our girls were growing up and cheered as hard for them from the stands and the auditoriums as I did. She fought for them like they were hers. And she was so proud of each thing they accomplished.  They knew they had a champion on their side.

When our first grandchild Georgia, came along in April of this year, my friend was sick. But she gathered herself up and came to visit Georgia. Two of my favorites meeting for the first time. We only had six months to share the joys of being grandmothers together. I wanted more.

As my friend weakened, we would take Georgia to visit her and she would light up. When we visited without Georgia she wanted to know where the baby was. Even when she was confused from her brain cancer and chemo, she asked about Georgia. She would have loved her and Georgia would have had a true and loyal champion in her corner.

When the call came that she had broken through the gates of heaven, I was suddenly lost. I felt a large gaping hole in my heart. I didn’t want a world without her in it. We had been friends for nearly 20 years. Throughout our friendship we had worked together with our desks feet apart and then usually had a phone call each night as well. We had traveled together and done some crazy and amazing things. We had supported each other through trials and triumphs. It was as if she had always been there and then she was gone. I missed her immediately. And then I was mad.

I know so many feel this way when a loved one passes. I could have made a list of people that God could have taken before her and the world might have been a better place in my opinion. She had worked to make her community a better place, had been a cheerleader for so many, she was a good good woman…why her? Why did she have to suffer so?

I know…as Christians we know that God is sovereign. That we are all a part of His great plan. But I also know that God loves us…and he KNOWS us…and so it is my hope that he understands when I am mad and angry at Him for this. Finding gratitude is tough when you are sinking in grief.

I am learning that gratitude in grief sometimes has to be forced. Maybe we have to set aside a time each morning to think of something we are grateful for. Maybe it’s easier to think at least once a day of something that my friend added to my life that I am grateful for. Maybe when the tears come at just the thought of her being gone, I can try to immediately pull a thought of gratitude about her to the surface. Maybe that will help. But it will take a while.  I guess it’s a good thing that I have so many great memories and so many moments of our friendship that I am grateful for…those moments of gratitude will get me down the long road until grief subsides.