Who knew loss could live tucked in a cookbook, a recipe jotted on a Post-it note.
The realization that it is her writing wrenches something loose.
Loss that has lived in a quiet place for months.
Trying to pull it back is useless and tears come hard, but so do little hands.
We miss her too, they say, wrapping snug around my shoulders and deep to the heart.
Grief gives the gift of a tender memory.
The above was a moment between my daughters and me. I felt I needed to capture it in words. The writing on the Post-it belonged to my grandma Deedee, who we lost a few years ago. Looking back at our relationship, I don’t know if we were particularly close. But I know I loved her. I loved her warmth, her soft hands, her laughter, her love and patience with my girls. There are foods that will forever remind me of her…frog eyed salad, pistachio dessert, the smell of fresh baked buns. Sometimes specific memories come but mostly there’s a constant murmur of love and loss. The wrongness of a world without her. There are moments of peaceful grief, of feeling her beside me, a certainty that if I reached out, I could take her hand in mine. There are also moments like above, where grief is raw and biting, where it overwhelms and suffocates, and rips open like a wound. After those moments pass, it’s hard not to think why can’t I get over it? Will it ever go away? The answer is no. Grief never leaves, it ebbs and flows but never leaves.
When my daughters’ arms were around me, I thought, I can’t let them see this, they’re too young, I need to pull myself together, wipe away the tears, shield them. But then I thought, be brave. Lean in and show them this is the price of loving someone. Show them how to love fully and to shine with the knowledge that they know love. Show them that falling to pieces is okay, because there will always be arms to help hold you together. So I did. I learned that little hands wiping tears away is just as healing as Mama hands wiping tears away. Or Grandma hands. In the moments that followed they were off running amok and jumping on the furniture like the monkeys they are.
Grief stays, but life heals.
Bad Adulting 