THE END OF A CHAPTER

Last week me and my family were sorting my Grandma's old apartment out and while I was sitting in a very echoed room, I kept looking around and every corner of it reminded me of my childhood. There is that bed where I used to play with all of her jewelry, there is that armchair with which I feel down when I was 5, there is that kitchen where she used to make me the best kind of soup that no one else knows how to and I won't ever get to taste it, there is the driveway where she used to wave as we were driving away to our home, there is that balcony where I used to sit at when it was very hot outside.
We were going through all of her things, we threw away so many of them which have been probably very important for her and which she was keeping just like we all do because we all cling onto stuff and it's so strange that you keep so many things in your life and you leave it all behind. I am a  very sentimental person anyway, but it's so strange and so difficult to go through someone's so close to you things when you know she is not around anymore. She is actually not with us for almost a year already but at that time when I was looking around this empty apartment, I realized that she is indeed gone forever. Strangely even at the funeral I haven't felt that she was gone, I just felt relief that after so much suffering she went to a better place and even though in this year there were many moments when I missed her a lot, that day when we said goodbye to her apartment proved that she is not going to hug my anymore at all.
After we give the keys away, all we have left from her are the memories we will keep with us forever. I understand very well that this is just an apartment with many things in it and it isn't even that nice but I spent so much time there as I was growing up and it was a place to come to which was very comforting and safe and her presence there made it much more special. Now it's just an old and empty apartment with empty walls and wardrobes. But it's also a part of my childhood which is never going to come back just like my Grandma.
All I wanted to do at that time was to hug her which I can't do and won't be able to do ever. I really miss her a lot and it has probably hit me only that day just how much I really miss her in my life. This is, of course, course a part of life we can't escape but it's very very sad.  I got chills even writing about her and I know she is watching us from above and I really hope she is happy there and she knows just how much we all miss her in our lives.