Once each year.

Sometimes, just when you don't think you can handle one more emotion being thrown in your face, life hits you like a figurative brick wall. 

I thought I finally had everything under control after moving all week, working all weekend, and finishing finals; but I hadn't really had time to process what month it was. I've never been a fan of May, it's windy, it's AP week (or finals, now), and the anticipation for summer is getting the best of everyone. 

So when I got a letter from my best friend on Friday that said, "I know your least favorite day of the year is coming up. And I want you to know that I'm thinking about you, that the Plan of Salvation is real, and families ARE forever." I was caught a little off guard. 

Then I realized what he meant. It's been three years since my Grandma passed away; three years since the hardest day of my life. 

Even though I miss her so much it hurts to breathe somedays, I've learned so much over the last three years; things I wouldn't have learned otherwise. 

The night she passed away, after I'd told my friends good night, turned off my cell phone, and my family had gone to bed, I turned to my scriptures, desperate for some kind of comfort. 

Opening to a handout in the New Testament, I turned the page to 2nd Corinthians 4:17, which reads: 

"For our light affliction  which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory. " 

Even though I wouldn't want to go through any of that again, I know that I wouldn't be the same person without that trial. I've learned how to rely on my Heavenly Father for comfort, and how to apply the Atonement to my life. I learned how incredible my family truly is, and I think the sealing power we find in the temples is even more amazing now. I know how much it hurt to lose my grandma, and at the time, that seemed like the worst thing in the world to me--and it might have been. But I do know that that trial will be worth it in the end, when I get to see her again in the spirit world and be with her for eternity. The pain of that loss is nothing compared to the glory we'll experience after. 

In the meantime though, I'll do my best to follow her example. To love without hesitation, and serve without a second thought. To focus on others more than I focus on myself, and set goals that will help me in a celestial sense. I want to be the kind of mother she was, and the kind of relationship that she and my grandpa have. During her fight with cancer, she adopted a motto of sorts, the phrase "You can do hard things" and I'd be lying if I said I hadn't applied that in my own life. I can do hard things, and I will keep doing hard things--because I had a nearly perfect example of endurance to follow. 

I love you, Grandma.