Grams

Sometimes it feels difficult to do what everyone considers the "right thing." March is almost here and then before I know it May will be here too. To me it seems so unreal that in just a few months my family will mark the first anniversary of the most important person in our worlds' death. My grandma is someone who is simply irreplaceable. She was the center of our family, the rock that kept us grounded and reminded us that nothing matters more than each other. So to me it seems impossible that her loss will ever settle in my heart. I know what I am supposed to do, how grief is supposed to work, but I can't help feeling I am not doing it right. I can't help wanting to scream and cry every time something, even the littlest thing, reminds me of her. While unpacking today I cam across the quilt I was given after she passed. It is unfinished, the last quilt she was working on. My Aunt Lila offered to help me finish it but I can't. I don't want to remove a single pin or make a single stitch because every pin that is there she put there. I came across her afghan too, i could still smell her on it. It hurt so bad to smell her and know that sometime maybe even soon, that smell will wear off and I will only have the memory of her smell. They say time heals everything, I can't imagine this wound ever healing.

One of the toughest days to get through was my wedding day. As wonderful as that day was, it was equally as sad. I just saw a picture from that morning. It was taken just after I had put my dress on and I was looking at it in the mirror. I remember exactly what I was thinking. I was wishing with everything inside me that my Grandma was there. It seemed not right that she wasn't standing next to my mom, that she wasn't the one zipping me up. It was the first and really only time I actually cried that day because the pain was so much and so deep.

You see I am a Grandma's girl. I love my parents more than anything but it is almost as if no one understood me or could make me feel the way she did. She helped raise me for part of my life and a lot of little things I learned from her. My love of books, the fact that I hate wearing socks to bed, how to fold laundry, my love of children, how I love to tell stories (usually the same one over and over to someone who has already heard it)... it was all from her. She was my hero, I have never met a stronger woman, or man for that matter, who was also the softest person at the same time. She had more love than she knew what to do with. My whole life the person I was and still am most afraid of disappointing is my grandma. But the weird thing was you could never disappoint her, she loved you regardless of what you did. She was amazing and her stories and life were amazing. My deepest wish is that my children (future) would have known her. I mean really know her, not just her memory. I am so thankful that she knew my husband but also sad because the woman my husband got to know was only a portion of the woman I grew up with. By the time Gerald was becoming a part of the family, she was already starting to slip away. I know that she loved him and that she knew he was a good person. She told my aunt that he knew he would take care of me and he has. She always knew best.

It seems so scary how someone can be here one day and gone the next. Life is not funny that way. I want to be happy knowing that we can keep her alive through our memories but it just makes me sad that all she is now is a memory. So many important things still have not happened in my life and she will not be there when they do. I know a lot of people say but she will be in this way or that way but sometimes that just is not good enough.

I know this is a sad blog and I'm sorry but I needed to say these things. I need to know that someone else might feel the same way or that it's okay to not grieve the way you are supposed to. It's sad and ironic that the one person who could probably explain it to me best and help me feel better about it is her.She always had the answers, even if it weren't the ones we wanted to hear.

I love you Grams, always.

xoxo

Ambie