Happy Birthday, Grandma!

It’s hard to believe that life can go on without certain people.  My family lost four people this year, and it’s been hard.  What’s surprised me most is how my family has functioned through the experience, both as a unit and as individuals.  How can we live without the people we take for granted, the ones we never imagine not being in our lives?  Their permanent absence seems unreal, not right, a bad dream, unfathomable, un-graspable, untranslatable, just plain WRONG.  So, doesn’t it seem like we would just fall apart?  We haven’t, at least not out loud.  Why not?

My grandma is one of the people we lost and one whose absence seems unfathomable. Today is her birthday.  This blog entry is for me to remember her. More memories than I thought belong with her, especially memories of my childhood.  Since she’s been gone, the days and nights I spent with her in her big farm house seem more special, more important, more integral to making me who I am.  In the memories, I find pieces of myself I realize I could not have discovered until now after loss happened.  I am very happy and proud that those memories exist in my life.  I’ve learned some things through the losses of this year, but mostly I’ve learned that the ones left behind (all of us) just survive.  That’s all.

Nobody knows what to do with death.  For me, not knowing what to do with death makes me numb to its crashing my life.  In some ways, I’ve been on autopilot, but today, I’ll stop and wish my grandma a happy birthday in Heaven.  And I’ll shed some tears that I worried would never come.

Happy Birthday, Grandma!  I love you.

Love,

Kelly