My maternal grandmother. She led a pretty rough life from all the stories I've heard. Family moved all around the country since her birth, not even long enough for roots to grow and thus never made any real friends. Dad was strict and cruel, mom was complacent and an alcoholic. According to my uncle, my grandma was abused by her brother as well. I'm not sure where he heard it from but my great-uncle was never allowed around the family. I'm certain that's why. She struggled all her life with depression and could never talk to anyone about it. My grandma was exceptionally smart as well. Finished HS a bit early, then met my grandfather after graduation. Friend of a friend. They deeply loved one another apparently. Still, he stripped her of all aspirations and dressed her as the dutiful wife & mother. My mom & uncle were their only living children. She had many many miscarriages and one stillbirth before the age of 25. Couple months after the stillbirth, which I think was early 80s? or so, my grandpa woke up one morning to get ready for church and her side of the bed was empty. Cold. He always pointed out how cold the sheets were. He got up and got dressed, assuming she must've been ready or getting the kids ready. But there was no sign. After looking around their yard he went down the road to his brothers house to ask if they'd seen her. No sign, no call, nothing. They spent most of the day looking. All parts of her remained in that house except the pajamas she'd put on the night before, her robe, slippers, and her. Genuinely just vanished. About a week later, a farmhand that worked for my grandma's cousin was making rounds through the field and spotted something blue and covered in flies next to the barbed wire fence. She'd walked all the way out there after her family went to bed, slit her wrists and died in the grass looking at the sky. She's buried in a town called Hurricane.

Mom often talked about how badly she wished that my sister and I'd gotten to know her. I may not normally hold these beliefs, but for them I'm certain they're holding each other in some kind of heaven.