Reflections on the two year anniversary of my grandma's death

Two Years to the Day


It has been two years today
She was eighty something
and that morning
my grandma passed away
I didn't know she was sick
until 24 hours earlier
I was seven hours away from her
I couldn't go
I didn't call
I had spent the day before
on a field trip out at a ranch
with my children,
meeting new people,
and trying to be enthusiastic about
the worms my kids were digging up,
and pretending that life was okay
for, surely, strangers didn't want to know
Because even my friends had no words
Whenever I drove, I cried
Yeah, she was eighty something
But to me she was someone
who had helped to shape my heart
from the beginning of my time on this earth
and suddenly heaven felt very far away, unfair
I sang, "I will rise out of these ashes"
along with Shawn McDonald's steady voice
and I tried to believe it
My grandpa died a handful of days later
and I thought, "why God?"
The months kept changing anyway,
My daughter lost a tooth,
My son learned how to dress himself,
We went camping,
Then school started
and swimming lessons
and life kept on
as it does.
I read about grief
and I realized I wasn't actually
turning into a crazy person
who cried every time I drove,
and who sometimes just randomly cried
when people were talking to me,
but I was a person who had
lost an important part of myself
and I wouldn't be the same
and it was okay
even though it wasn't okay.
I don't believe that time heals all wounds
My wounds will be there
Sometimes when we sing Blessed Assurance
or when a loud manly voice in church
cries out "Hallelujah"
I think of my grandparents
and the ache of missing them, the sting of tears
is ever so real!
But Shawn McDonald's words have become true
when I sing, "because He who is in me
is greater than I will ever be
and I will rise."
Slowly,
Anger turned to Acceptance,
sometime between one year
and two years later,
Slowly,
like the long process of the seasons,
as the leaves turned orange
on the trees
and then fell away
and the snow filled the ground,
and then the green grass
returned again
until the cool summer
evening breeze
whispered peace to my heart again