Today marks a year

Today is the year anniversary of my mother-in-law's death. Nothing has gotten any easier. She was such a huge part of our lives. Every holiday was planned around her, and we knew every Saturday would be spent with her. She was one of the kindest, gentlest people I have ever met. I never heard her once judge anybody for anything. She knew shit happened & every person was human, regardless of fault, and that's the way she treated me every day I knew her. It's hard to wrap my head around loving someone so much that I only knew for 4 years. Tony always told me that once I met her, she'd drive me nuts within a month. Never happened. Last Friday marked the year anniversary of her stroke & I tried to get the night off from work too late, and was denied the time. I took the high road & hauled my butt in anyway, and the night sucked. The past week has been spent remembering sitting at the hospital for hours on end. She had so many people there for her. But we were all just waiting. The doctor did 2 surgeries before he told us we could keep her on life support or let her go. It was hell making the right decision. She held on for hours without machines, and we made sure she went out on a very puffy cloud of morphine. Hell, maybe that's why she held on for so long. (Haha) Actually, I know why she held on for so long. She waited until everyone left except for Tony; his sister, Annette; and me. Then she waited until we weren't hovering, waiting. They fell asleep there in her hospital room. I closed my eyes, but couldn't sleep. I listened to her snore. Then she wasn't snoring anymore. I woke them up, they called the nurse in. If she had held on for about 40 more minutes, she would have been 10 days within her 56th birthday. I still haven't decided whether I will call out tonight. I need to figure it out, though, because it's getting late. I know I'm walking a very fine line between keeping my job & getting fired, but today family should come first. I just should have thought of that before now & asked for it off in advance. And today I can't bring myself to care.