The List: What is the hardest thing you have ever experienced?

Well there are few things that rank up there as my hardest experience. However the first thing that comes to mind is losing my Great Grandmother. She was the rock of our family. This year marks 10 years since she was here with us. Lena Florine Butterfield was one of the strongest persons I ever knew. She was not only our family's matriarch but she was involved with the community. At 84 years old she was still very much involved until that unfortunate day she had a heart attack. It was the last week of February 2002, she underwent a six bypass surgery which she never really woke up from. They had to open her back up two more times after surgery due to internal bleeding which caused further infection leaving her in a comatose state. For the next 6 weeks we would watch her body shut down and her organs fail while she laid in ICU. Because her living will papers were not complete before the heart attack, the medical staff had to keep trying everything to keep her living even though that was not her wishes. They had her on dialysis, inserted a trach tube to help her breathe, and all sorts of wires. I remember sleeping in the waiting room a couple of nights while we were all up there. She lost her battle on April 1, 2002 after being taken off all of the wires and tubes. It was the hardest thing I've ever had to go through. To this day, I miss her. Our family sure is not the same as what it was when she was with us.