yia yia

is home!!! yia yia is my grandma, whom i'm named after. i'm the only granddaughter out of 4 grandsons, who are almost all named after my grandpa demitri. she is my dad's mom and lives in greece. on christmas day she was rushed to the emergency room, which was almost a half hour away...they went to the closest hospital that was open that day. what a scare. she was there for the past 3 days and went to my uncle's yesterday to stay with him, my aunt and cousins for a couple of weeks. then she'll have a live-in nurse stay with her...which i know she won't like but she can't live alone anymore. she is 93 and papou, my grandpa passed away last year, he was 96. i know she misses him terribly. they were the cutest couple & alway's will be, to me.

i have not been to greece in probably 4-5 years, i used to go every summer but it's not that easy taking time off to go away for a few weeks. most employer's don't really go for that, but i am planning to go next summer for a couple of weeks, i have to go. i really hope to see her & spend time with her. yia yia is a tough cookie but soft cookie w/select few, like me. she is so funny! we've had some great laughs & i miss her lots. i miss my grandpa too, he was awesome...a true gem for sure ~ both so loving, caring and truly special. when my grandma leaves us someday, my bro & i won't have any grandparents b/c my mom's mom, our abuela julia maria passed away when my mom was like 17 so we never even met her and we have not heard from our abuelo jose since our mom passed away like 16 years ago. last i heard, he was in michigan...don't really care for him. we've tried to reach out to him. he's never come around, not even called to say hello...shady character.

anyways, back to yia yia...on my way home from work last night my dad called to give me an update that she was home from the hospital and feeling better. she has a blockage of some sort near her heart, is on med's & resting. my dad has been worried, not sleeping well and when he is a mess so are we. now that she's home we are all much more at ease...not big fan's of hospitals! as we were on the phone that song 'speed of sound' by coldplay came on, an ambulance passed by but not w/lights on or going fast or anything it just passed on by. as i looked at the back of the ambulance, the lights were on and an elderly lady was lying down and that visual & image right there just brought me to where my grandma was that day and it was very touching. you never know how something really effects you until you can visualize it, it has a much grander effect on you & becomes much more real.