Grandmom

I miss you, Grandmom. I’m sorry that the end of your life was so scary and unpleasant for you. I wish I could have made it better. I wish I could have comforted you, held your hand, even held you. You always had a big wall around you, so when I visited you, it didn’t seem possible. I tried to give you some healing on your knees, but you were so anxious and I knew that it’s not something you believed in, so I couldn’t really do much in that way. But, I read Alice in Wonderland to you and you laughed and seemed to love it. I played acoustic piano music for you and you loved it, until it started to annoy you. You loved the chocolate I brought (that my mother told me was a favorite of yours). I cleaned your hands and fingernails and gave you a manicure.

I was comforted by the fact that you asked who the woman is “that’s standing over there,” as you looked at the chairs across from the foot of your bed where no one stood. You said, “she’s always there, looking at me.” I asked if you knew her, and you said no. I asked if she was nice, you said you didn’t know but she seemed nice. And then you repeated that she’s always there. I’m certain it was a spirit being, helping with your transition, keeping you company through how very difficult it all was. At least I’m so hopeful it was.

I’m so glad I got that time with you alone just to be with you. To say goodbye in my own way. I was heartbroken when I started feeling ill due to the supplements I was taking and they wouldn’t let me go back into the room, even to explain to you why I had left. Thankfully I got to come back for another visit. But because my uncle was there, it was different that time. Still, though, I got to see you again and hug and kiss you goodbye that time, knowing I may never see you again here on this plane.

I’m also grateful that three and a half years prior, I visited and got to spend time with you when you were still lucid. I went to your senior center and met your friends, we went shopping, and you gave me two rings that I cherish because you picked them, really wanting me to have them and I knew that you were just starting to slip away.

Once I told you in a rush of pain and hurt at something you had said, “you don’t know how to give love, you only know how to give presents.” But what I know now is presents are how you gave love, one of the main ways, and I’ve learned that that is love. So, I cherish what you gave me, and I cherish the amethyst earrings and pendant you gave me on my ninth birthday, and the “Carly” necklace as well. And I hope you forgave me for what I said to you.

I wonder why I didn’t go and see you when I visited New Jersey in winter 2019. I think I was short on time and trying to manage everything that comes with visiting my family. There was also a lot of angst between you and my aunt, and I think I could only manage so much that visit.

When I would call you from Canada during the pandemic, you’d ask me when I am coming and that you want me to come. Even before that, you would tell me I should come and live with you, that I was welcome to. That was so beautiful and generous. I wonder if you were lonely. It makes my heart hurt so much and eyes sting and swell with tears to think you were, and that I couldn’t fix that for you. That I had to keep my distance. I felt like when you asked me when I’m coming to visit like you were begging me to visit. I wish your life was full with joy and fun, and connection. But I think you were lonely. And, I’m so, so sorry for that, grandmom. I really am.

I hope death is like Abraham-Hicks says, that it is such a blissful experience and you welcome it like some sort of state of being, better than an eternal orgasm and a freedom and peace that surpasses understanding.

When I think of it, I imagine something like what I experienced in New York, this ultimate knowing of what can’t be put into words, but that all is perfect, and all is love. Only it’s even so much better than that because you are free of the weight of this plane, the weight of your body, the weight of this human reality that you didn’t seem to care for much. I imagine you free of all of that, and only with the joy you felt with animals, concentrated times a billion, coursing through your free-flying soul in bursts of light, with an amorphic field of flowers and green below, and angel song. You would love angel song, I know you would.

I miss you. I love you. I’m sorry if I didn’t do a good enough job of showing you that. I’m sorry if I could have made your life any better and I didn’t.

I made an appointment with a medium, and I’m in the process of setting another one up too. I just want to know you are in joy and bliss now finally.

I guess I’m able to grieve today. I didn’t realize I felt like I didn’t relieve your suffering and should have. I asked for a sign and thought of what it could be. I decided maybe a huge group of cats, because I always associate that memory with you, that you had 13 cats at one point, or whatever number. But you certainly would not fit the image of a “crazy cat lady” to me, ever. And, I’ve seen groups of cats, three, even four I think, but I meant more. But…maybe if there is a sign, it will be something I don’t expect, but I’ll just know it’s you, and it’ll surprise me, in a brilliant way.

In Thessaloniki, I think it was, I kept smelling you. Maybe that was a sign you were getting close to passing, and I thought as much. Maybe that was when you had covid. I’m so sorry you had covid. I feel the pain in my chest just thinking about it.

This song, a version of “Landslide” by Dagny has seemed to allow me to access more of my grief. And, some distance from my uncle’s rage being directed at me the day after your death. In what world is that okay? They don’t recognize that I am grieving. That I lost someone too. And that I don’t ever deserve to be the proxy or scapegoat of their anger energy. Or their perception of reality where they are victims. There’s so much dysfunction, Grandmom. And not enough love. And, zero forgiveness or empathy. I can’t imagine pouring all of that out onto my niece. And I know he was angry at me as well.

It took me a while to get that out of me, and it had knocked me out of my own process of grieving you. But, I think I’ve found myself and the space again to do it. I was in Tirana, Albania, and it’s difficult there, I couldn’t really connect with you. But, somehow, now that I am in Ohrid for a few days, it seems like I can. It’s really rainy, and there’s a big lake, and it’s quiet here in this apartment, and much quieter in this town. It’s less polluted, people are friendlier. Maybe that’s why. There’s more space for me to breathe.

I miss you. I’m sorry you are gone. I am trying to connect with you in spirit, to know that you are just somewhere else, or in another form, but it does feel like you are gone. Knowing that I won’t have the physical experience of you again, is so hard.

It also makes me so afraid. Afraid of losing my mother, my father, my sisters, my niece, nephews, and nibling. I don’t think there’s anything I can do to prepare for that. How can I prepare for losing my mother or father? I always try to explain how much I love them, but it somehow doesn’t feel like enough to me. I wish I could connect so deeply with their hearts. I wish there was a knowing between us, and safety, and joy. It’s so complicated.

I wish I had food to deal with all of this. Or coffee, something. But it’s good that I don’t. I have to feel it. I have to let my heart be so heavy. My eyes be so stung. I miss you. I love you. I hope you know. I hope you realize. I hope you get it. I hope it’s all okay. I love you.