Grandma passed away almost a year ago. With everything that I was going through last year, me sitting in the rubble of what was my life before cancer, I didn’t have the energy to grieve. I always thought I would break down, weep, scream, cry, when grandma passed. I did none of those things. I was numb. Stoic.
Deep down the sadness grew. It sat in the pit of my stomach, silent. It extended it’s branches into my bones, my lungs, my heart, my throat, until there are times where the branches smother me and leave me breathless.
I see things we are doing and think “Grandma would be so proud”. I’m so different than the little girl that she tried so hard to protect. I’ve grown in ways that neither of us imagined was possible. And I continue to grow. And she would be proud. So proud.
Going through therapy last year left me raw. Talking about things that should never be spoken about. Fear, pain, embarrassment, guilt. Talking about a million things that were so out of my control, I was just a rider on the rollercoaster, and no amount of screaming could penetrate the world that I had lived in. Then… as if someone pushed me through a door in a big box of light, slamming the door behind me, I was lost in my love. Music. How it melted away the sadness, the fear. How it made me cry at times I didn’t realize I needed to cry. Sitting in the back of a crowded bar in Kansas City, listening to Vincent Lima singing “The Only Thing Left” and realizing, I am alive. Grandma was dead. I was alive. Grandma was gone. And the tears flowed.
I’m still wounded. Still grieving. Still growing. Still alive. I’m still here.