sweet sorrow

I lost my grandmother this week.

Sweet, wonderful woman… I adore you, I admire you, I love you.

I could never tell you enough how I feel about you. I tried the last time I talked to you, the day that you passed. I whispered in the phone how much I loved you. How much I would miss you. I heard your feeble response. I knew you heard me, that you were trying to throw those loving words back to me, as you always did…

And I’ve never felt so far away from home. I wanted to reach through the phone and hold your hand, rub your feet, brush your hair.

You are the beginning of everything that I am today. I aspire to be the woman that you are. You gave me direction, you instilled hope in me, you had more confidence in me than I had in myself. I wanted to be the person you saw in me. I still do.

I am so happy for you. I know that you so wanted to be with your sweetheart… that you’ve missed your mother for decades… that you’ve been trapped in that painful body far too long. I am happy for you. But my chest hurts when I think that I can’t call you up anymore, tell you my funny story, hear you say you’re proud of me. I cried today in the car when I realized that I won’t walk through that door anymore to that wonderful little home of yours and see you sitting in that chair as if waiting to see who would walk through next to come see you. The twinkle in your eye, that broad smile, the radiance of love that was uniquely yours... to say I will miss you is a vast understatement. You are a part of me and without you here, I will always carry a sense of homesickness with me.

This will be the last of the whining and complaining. You never did that. And I know those thoughts are selfish. As my grandfather once said of you:

“I love her with all of my heart and soul. Upon the wind of her spirit have my wings been carried.”

Your spirit has carried all of us for a long time. It will not be easy to be separated from you. I miss you already. I love you. I look forward to the day that I will see your shining face again and feel your much stronger arms around me.