Dear Grandma

Dear Grandma,

Yesterday I spoke to a new company about a possible job writing articles and having a new title online. I did not get the feeling that the company had the same objectives online that I do or the same idea of how things operate.  I know I never interview well so I am trying not to get my hopes up. It is an exciting challenge because it would be competing with the local newspaper.  Do I have the confidence to give this the time attention and effort it would take. Could I really handle the sales and marketing aspect of it just learning by example and make it work on my own? I even wonder if I am worth the risk this company is asking to take in trusting me. I have my doubts and worries, but at the same time I would like to try.

I know I have to keep up with the house work, and the job too. It is important to me to have time to walk my dog too. Over the days since your death I have been asking myself if I am happy with my life. I know that nothing is perfect, but I understand that I need more than I have to be truly happy.  Is this what I need? Oh Grandma I so wish you were here alive to tell me a story to answer me. I miss you council I need your advice. I am nearly in tears missing you now because I want to know what you would say. I have even wondered what I would tell a beloved Grand-daughter of my own in such a case?  Well in any case the house work i must get done today is clear and waiting for me.  All if the what if’s will have to wait for the house work today.  As I work I will consider taking the risk and writing a new article for this new chance. Even if the interview was the failure I think it was, an article might show them that I am worth the risk of trusting me with the title, the job and the chance.  I would hate to think I put this much effort in to mulling over a chance I never even had.

Dear Grandma,

When you were alive you kept me working toward goals. When the baby would walk. When I would stay inside the food budget. When I would meet those goals the best pay off was pleasing you. I still have people in my life whom I want to feel proud of me, but right now I just do not have any goals to meet. I feel like with a new goal I will not worry so much about this unconnected feeling.

Are we on the same path just at different places?

Is it possible that if I knew where I was I would work out where I should go? I cherish the things about us that were so much alike. I miss the ways you were nothing like me and the wonderful chance to learn it was each and every day. How silly of me to have dressed both dolls in nearly the same clothes. Ah well I need a goal not a action to ponder. I can not help but wonder what goal would you inspire me to reach for?  It is lonely knowing at this point all I can do is wonder.

Dear Grandma,

Last night I stayed up way to late. In fact I planned on sleeping in this morning, but that just simply did not happen. So after a late night and an early morning I am very worn out and the day is just getting started. The kids are all to old for me to put them down for a nap and rest with them, and not old enough yet for me to retire for a nap and know that they will manage until I wake up.  Caught between a rock again. Worst of all it is all my own falt I choose to stay awake until the wee hours of the morning. Well at least it is the weekend and I do not have to race to get kids to school or head out for meetings!

The big wide world online is getting smaller. It makes me miss talking to you even more. Your advice has been my secret weapon for as long as I could remember. I feel the loss of your prayers everyday. I know I should start praying myself, but my own faith is weak and scattered right now. It is an unending circle, and I just do not worry much about it now.

I do a lot of looking forward to future events now. Am I loosing track of the moments I am living in? I know where I am sitting, I know the day and the time, but I really do not know where I am.  The hardest of these inter battles right now is centered on my dog. In 2003 we lived near a family that had a beautiful smart dog, but they did not walk him or truly invite him into their family. Now I have a smart beautiful dog and he is very much a part of our family, but I have not been walking him. He does not understand the weather is cold outside, he just wants the attention and the activity. I need the walks as much as he does, but I have not been outside in the bitter cold.  No matter the weather you did the work that was yours to do. In my silly mixed up heart I feel like I am letting my dog and you both down.

My greatest hope today is that i can get enough house work done to sit and rest and slip off to bed early. Not much of a life goal but for now it will have to do.

The death of my beloved Grandma and the resulting grief has turned my life upside down.
We went into her funeral as one family and left as many separate families. Everything I have know about my family and how it relates to the world and how i see myself changed.

I know I have grief support listed here on the Living With Grief entry. I wrote that article to help others and I am not working the sessions myself. I need to deal with my grief and find peace with it too.

I cried yesterday because I found a birthday card you mailed to one of my sons. You signed it Love Great Grandma. Seeing your hand writing was to much for my heart to bear. Are the few words you wrote and the photos of you the best proof we have of your amazing life?

Dear Grandma,

Even in the midst of staying busy and trying to get things doen I find myself missing you. I wonder what story you would have told me today. I wonder what I would have learned from it? All this wondering makes me feel lonely and sad. I also wonder waht your feeling today? Are there feeling in heaven?

Well my story today like most days is house work. I have run so many loads of laundry I have lost track of how many. The washer and the dryer are both spinning as I type. For the most part the dishes are done. I have two kids in school and two kids home sick today. I hope to have three kids in school and only one home sick wednesday.

My kids getting over this flu has made me think of the get well cards i sent to you and ment to send to you in those last weeks of your life here on earth. It has made me wish that I would have travled to see you on all of those spring breaks that I told you and promised you I would be there. I had no idea how important that time really was. I am scared that there is something important now that I am missing. Grief is just no fun.

Dear Grandma,

Do you remember the web community that got so complicated? Well it has split in to two communities now and the original one has welcomed me back. It is a nice thing but I am worried that it may not be as wonderful as I think it is. When I joined the first time I put way to much of my heart, my time and my life into being apart of the goings on there.  I still feel bad that most of the people I thought were my friends are not being very friendly now. I have always known that friendship means different things to each and every person on earth.  I think this is about loyalty not friendship.

I still have two sick kids home from school, but the other two are in class today. I still have house work and craft projects to keep me busy. After everything that has happened in the past few years I have learned not to put all my eggs in one basket ever again. It felt like such a victory to get my member name and my site blog back but all put together those things are just not as important as they were the first time around.

I am all but out of time to blog today because the kids I still have home sick need me to help them.

Grandma do you miss me nearly as much as I miss you?

Dear Grandma,

Today is Sunday and I know you would have made it to church one way or another if you could.  I know you would have gone to church and rejoiced in being at Mass. you would have prayed with the love in your heart and soul like fire.  Being in prayer and one with your faith made you stronger than many people will ever understand.

Sunday for me is a chance to catch my breath. I should go to church, and pray through the Mass just like you taught me to.  I have been staying home.  I pray every now and then.  I know you want me to take my whole family to church every Sunday and everyday important to the church too.  I do not think I have a little faith or a weak faith, but I do know that I feel distant from the church and from God. It could be that I am angry about the distance your death has put between us. It could be that all the fight has gone out of me.

I have been doing my house work in silence.  I think you would be please with how much I have been getting done. Not at all like after Grandpa died when I just stopped working, stopped trying and tried to retreat from life itself too. I have learned the life does go on lesson.  In some ways knowing this makes loosing you hurt much worse Grandma. It makes me long for your company more.

Today is one of my different Sundays, and I miss you so very much. Today I will plod through everything I have to do like any other day of the week. I still feel ill, two of my kids are still sick but the other two have recovered from the flu we all caught this year. My Husband is working harder than ever, doing his best to support me and as always being an amazing father to all four kids.

Grandma, I have a chance to write articles for a local web site. I think I can do this, and I want to do this. I am worried because it is not a paying job, and just when I need the articles I have finished online to show off they have been removed. Even online gossip and everyday squabbles change the landscape of life.  I will have to print out the articles I have written to share them with the new site. This Site Editor job also holds the prospect of interviewing local people for online articles.  How odd is it that with my trouble spelling and my personal need to stay out of the local social loops that this would be the place that I get a chance to be a journalist. Could this lead to a paying job?  I wish you were alive to help me pray for that. Do the people in Heaven go on praying for their families living on earth?

Ok the more I type the more I want to cry so I need to end this letter I need to belive you an read here. I will always love you Grandma.

Today is just the kind of day I would have needed your help support and advice Grandma. I have kids home sick house work piling up on me, hard choices to make, and all I want is to talk with you on the phone.  If dreams could come true i would want to take to you in person at your house on a warm spring day when my kids could go outside and play in your yard.  I would settle for a phone call.

Am I selfish to still love you and need you after God has called you home?  If I am right now I am straight with that. So much of you lives on in my heart. Sometimes I think I see your face when I look at my daughter. That made me wonder if other see you when they look at my face?  That is a long shot because I have not even called any of them, let alone seen them. You were the only one who kept in touch after Grandpa died and now that your gone, so we all lost so much more.  It hurt to see how far apart we had all grown at your funeral.  I really do not know why none of my cousins really talked with me?  I am confused, but I will forget that confusion because none of them will bother to contact me.

I called my Mom on the phone she said what she misses most is talking to you but she also remembered that we have not been able to talk to you since last summer.

Still loving you Grandma. Still missing you Grandma.

Dear Grandma,

Some days are harder than others, and today has been terrible. I miss you so very much that I am hiding from everyone even myself. I want to break down and cry, but that has not happen yet since we got home.

The kids brought home a cold from the funeral, so now that I need this time to myself, to take care of myself, I have to look after sick children. It feels like I am walking through four feet of water just to move, so the house work is not getting done fast but it is getting done. I have decided not to make any big choices right now, I know I am lost in grief and I would rather wait than make a huge mistake. I am rather happy with my efforts to go on eating healthy, but the comfort to be found in sweets and salty snacks is never far from my thoughts.

I talked to my Mom on the phone today, she seems to be a shadow of her former self. Grandma she misses you so dearly and she is I fear more lost than I am. I wish I could help her or convince her to seek out the help she needs. I think it would help us both if we could lean on each other the way you and I did after Grandpa died. Oh my there is another of my famous run on sentences! You put up with my oddities, I will miss that too.

Today Alicia asked what happened in your head that made you die.  I was dumb struck.  All I could think to tell her was that a stroke is a brain attack and that God called you to heaven.  She still has questions, and I just can not answer them yet. Then she asked how you were doing in heaven today. For that I told her you were having a great wonderful day.

I do hope your having a wonderful great day in Heaven today Grandma. I still love you. I miss you so much it hurts.

Well those dishes got done, dinner made it to the table, and I have managed to stave off the tears yet again.  I know I need anouther good cry but I am sure that stopping to cry again and not getting the housework done is not a good thing.

Right now minutes seem much longer than they are.  Getting anything done on time is such a strugle right now. I know the struggle will not get any easier for years, but this time I simply can not try to be a hermit or stop living and doing things like I did in 2002 after Grandpa died.

Grandma was a faithful Catholic, and her faith made her stronger.  I feel so distant from my faith right now.  I feel so distant from my Grandma right now too.

 My goal today is to try very hard to be with her in prayer. She must have gone stright to heaven. Faith like hers is stronger than steel and more beautiful than anything known to our eyes.  I hope she saw the face of God and that it was more beautiful than even she had hopped it would be.