Thankful for the Big Picture

I was sitting at my kitchen table today, working on Christmas presents and listening to the radio.  I had been singing along about Frosty and Rudolph and what have you, when they went to commercial break.  An ad for the Christmas DVD by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir came on.  My eyes looked up to my Grandma's funeral program still on my fridge. And the floodgates opened.

Christmas is Grandma.  The MoTabs are Grandma. My tears are for Grandma.  My grandfathers have both been gone long enough (14 years, and 10 years), that I forgot the way little things can bring about a red-hot hurt in a second.  I still miss them dearly, and think of them every day, but with Grandma, I'm still at that point where I can't believe she's really gone.  I can't believe she won't be there on Thursday, when we meet at my sister's table for Thanksgiving dinner.  I can't believe this will be my first Christmas without her, and some of her decorations will be on my tree this year instead of hers.

But what I can believe: She and my grandfathers are part of what I'll always be thankful for. And because of that, my memories of them, and of us together, will be enough.  Just until I can be with them again. Then that too will be something for which I will be forever thankful.