Making the bed. Chimichangas. Folding towels. The phrase "sweet tooth". Pot Roast. Those straps that hold your sheets on. Ironing a men's dress shirt. Eucalyptus. Seashells. Wooden spoons.
All these things remind me of her. All these things have made me cry unexpectedly during the past few months. All of these seemingly mundane, normal things are suddenly sacred and exquisite. All of these things connect me to her, but the 2 parts of us are stretched so far apart that these things cause me pain.
The feeling of losing someone is hard to explain. It was something I feared for a very long time. I've lost people that have impacted my life, people I love, and people I cared about. I was sad to hear of their passing and wiped tears from my eyes at their funerals. I miss them when their name comes up or their seat is empty but that's different than this.
This. Grief. That is what I have been dreading. That moment when someone who is woven into the very fibers of your soul is torn away leaving only the fragments behind. People always talk about the hole that's left behind when someone dies. I have been afraid of that hole. Worried that the hole would consume me, like a black hole absorbing matter and destroying everything in its path.
It's not though. It's just a hole. It's just the way things are now. It's just one less like on a Facebook post. It's one less person to talk to on a Sunday evening. It's one less card to send. She was there and now she not.
My grandmother Drusilla Loree Falk died November 18th 2016. My mother and I share her middle name and her sweet tooth. My grandmother loved me. Her life morphed to embrace and include me. The VHS of Cinderella at my parent's house belongs to her. I would watch it every time I went over. She bought it for us to watch together. I begged to take it home one day and she said I could keep it. Cinderella was her favorite princess.
She was my Granny. She loved family, was the queen of the guilt trips, and thought I was wonderful. I love the way she said wonderful. It was like a song rolling on her tongue, lifting you up to the realization of how amazing life was.
She taught me how to sew. She taught me how to make a bed. She hired me to help her clean and then taught me how. We would clean for a couple hours (sometimes less) and then she would take me to On the Border for lunch. She would get the beef chimichanga covered in queso and I would get the enchiladas. Afterward she send me home with much more money than I deserved.
I remember watching her fold towels because she wanted them done a certain way. She always folded them on the ironing board so she could get the long folds nice and straight. It was a good day when I was trusted to fold the towels on my own. I never fold my towels like that but since she is gone I can't help but carefully take time for each fold. It makes me feel close to her. It helps me remember her so clearly like we are back working together. Sometimes it makes me angry that she's far away and throw them back in the dryer for later.
I get angry a lot now. Angry as I hand wash my wooden spoons and knives because she taught me to never put in the dishwasher. Angry at the fact my hospital corners are not are as taught as hers were. Angry the smell of eucalyptus because it irritated her nose and now it's irritating my memories. I'm not angry at anyone in particular. I'm not even really "angry". I have a pretty bad temper. People know when I'm angry. It's loud and explosive. Isn't anger one of those steps of grief or something? It's a strange anger. A quiet and personal anger. One I carry alone and take out on folded towels and wooden spoons. An anger at how things are now. I didn't call as much as I should have and now I can't. I can't control this. I wasn't planning on dealing with this yet. I'm young, not even 30 and she was only 72.
I wanted more time. I thought I had more time. If there is one thing my granny gave me, it was time. We spent quality and quantity time together. Pot roasts on Sundays (I don't like pot roast), beach trips with seashells and seagulls, birthday lunches and shopping trips. Walking into her house was like being a celebrity. Everything she was doing stopped. It all became about you. Like you were so important this might be the last time she ever saw you. She is one of two people on this planet who can tell by the way that I say "Hey" that something is wrong even if I'm hiding it. The other is my mother. Another hole.
While grief is full of holes, I don't find it full of darkness. It's full of light and peace and comfort. There is beauty in the sadness. An experience that allows me to feel a depth of emotion the equivalent of which I have only found in the complexity of love. I was afraid of grief because I worried it would be unnatural and foreign: it is anything but. It seems familiar and significant. Like dejavu. Like I have longed for her before and I find myself once again wishing we were sharing the same side of the veil. I think that's where the comfort comes in knowing this is only a temporary separation.
When the tears leak out, my sweet 5 year old daughter who also bears our middle name reminds of this fact. That my Granny is waiting in heaven. That we will all be together after we die and are resurrected. My sweet girl tells me these things that she knows so simply because I taught them to her. I know them and she knows them and as we bear witness of these truths to each other. We find comfort and the joy to go on with happiness in our lives despite the holes.
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