Grief, you ignorant slut…

Provocative title, no?

She would love this. (Photo by Tetiana Shevereva on Unsplash)

We thought she would be out of the hospital soon. Two days later she was gone. Her memorial is today and I made the photo collage that will greet her many mourners. I drew vines and flowers around each image. The last thing I said was, “I love you”, and yet it will never feel like enough. My brain pummels my heart even tho said brain knows better. Grief is weird.

She loved flowers and had a green thumb like nobody’s business. If your plant was dying she would take it and nurse it back to health and give it back. She could start plants from seed even tho she didn’t have the typical garden, let alone space.

She could cook. Mexican food was her specialty, it was what he was raised on of course. Her tamales were famous. She would make a big batch for you, enough to freeze, naturally. She could also cook Indian food as well as soul food. Her kitchen was always being used. Only homemade cookies were allowed in her house. My god how phenomenal her black and white cookies were.

She loved puzzles. She would put them together and then glue them to a poster board and hang them in her small living room. She made a puzzle picture of cats for me. 😊

Before the arthritis got too bad, she hemmed and altered clothes for people. She was good at that, having had to alter clothes when his mother (at 4’11” and well over 300 pounds) needed muumuus. She was kind that way; she never embarrassed her.

She loved him through Vietnam and PTSD. She gave him the son he wanted, and made the son a junior. She joked with us that if she went first, we should take care of him. We laughed because of course she would not go first. How arrogant we were. We have been humbled. But we will take care of him, as she asked us to do, until the Creator reunites them in a more perfect form, with a more perfect love. It’s the least we can do, really.

She was not the Parent I was given but she tried to be the one I needed. She would not make excuses for Parent, but would also not pass judgement. She would only listen and be what I needed in that moment, she would soothe and counsel, and she did that for me until her end. Can I emulate? I will try to my last breath.

My husband has gone fishing with him, and checks in him daily. They bonded years before she left, and she loved my husband dearly for it. It has made it easier for us to look after him now. I don’t ask what they speak of, my husband lost his father at 14 and I imagine they share their stories if grief, but some things should stay private. I inquire after his general health- is he eating? Even under the circumstances, is he drinking more? Is he coping well? My husband answers me courteously but offers nothing more. I am not offended. I love my husband more. I got myself a good one , I did.

Her grandson was her pride and joy. She and her husband poured love and compassion into him, and he is a wonderful person. She felt his home life was volatile and so she would take him at a moments notice, never speaking ill if her son and his wife to him. But she and Grandpa would get down on the ground and play cars, knowing they would have to eat ibuprofen by the bottle later but seeing it a small price to pay. They took him to the zoo and botanical gardens. They went fishing. They let him know how smart and handsome he was. Most importantly, they let him know they were proud of the person he was and was becoming. At the age of 18, he was the one who comforted Grandpa when his world stopped spinning. He’s such a good grandson. He has good grandparents.

I suppose I should stop now, it’s getting hard to see. Grief is like that. It steals. Your sight. Your breath. The stale breath of Grief makes your eyes hot and swollen and filled with water. Its icy, talon-like grip curls around your heart and disrupts the beat. Grief gives you a Judas kiss, on the lips as opposed to the cheek, in order to steal your breath. . Grief threatens to send me to her, for I will go to her long before she comes back to me. And yet.

Grief remembers. Grief is like the pollen floating around that field of wildflowers that makes your eyes hot and swollen and filled with water. Its warm, soft hands, like hers, cups your heart and warms it, steadying the beat. Grief gives you a kiss on the forehead and then the cheek, in order to calm you so that you may breathe. Grief is here because I miss her, for I love her abut for now the love has nowhere to go. For now.

I could not let my life go by without putting these thoughts into the universe. I want you to know about her. She was one of my key pieces. I will not say these things at her memorial. I cannot. But I had to get them out of my head. They will remain in my heart. I dedicate my homes garden to her memory, She loved flowers. Now she is one. She will be in every flower I see.