Goodbye

“A child needs a grandparent…to grow a little more securely into an unfamiliar world.” Charles and Ann Morse

I’ve been searching for a way to talk about this topic for months now, and I’ve yet to find the words to express the emotions that it brings out in me. I have always had a great love for my family, but I’ve always felt it difficult to express very strong feelings, I’m much better at keep everything all bottled up inside. Of course at some point, the high pressure will generally lead to an explosion, and at that point all hell breaks loose. In that same way, I’m not very good at telling the people in my life how important they are to me. This past summer two of my grandparents passed away after declining for years, and I don’t feel as though I’ve ever really accepted that they are gone. I let myself cry very hard for their loss once, each time immediately after I’d heard of their passing, but other than that I worked very hard to keep it all tucked inside.

It’s strange, since moving away from home, the separation from family has made it easy enough to feel on some level as though nothing has changed. As long as I don’t think too hard about it, it feels as though Mema and Pepere are still around doing their thing, just miles and miles away. I didn’t see them or talk to them very much in these past few years which is something that I regret very much now, but that also makes it quite easy to not accept that they’re gone. I know that Mema’s house was sold and renovated, and that I’ll never go back to play Cinderella on the back porch, or school in our bedroom, but somehow that still hasn’t sunk into my head.

Pepere and Memere left Florida over a year ago, but still I keep thinking that at some point I’ll be swimming in their pool or watching TV out on the lanai someday again. Even though I’ve been to Memere’s new apartment, slept there, eaten there… it still isn’t Memere and Pepere’s house. Because I didn’t have that day to day contact with them, it’s as though my memories of what I grew up knowing have become my reality.

With Mema, at least I had the experience of her funeral, and seeing her in hospice to help me accept what was happening, but even so, I never really let myself say goodbye because I think in a lot of ways I had said my goodbye years ago when the grandmother I always knew began slipping away. I stopped letting myself really register that anything was changing to a certain degree and I think that’s why I’m still find myself thinking that when I go home for Christmas this year we’ll still head over to Mema’s house after we open all of our presents and have our second Christmas there. It’s completely unfathomable to me that she won’t be there sitting at her place on the couch when we have birthday parties. It was quite obvious to me that my Mema was dying, but not enough has changed to believe it fully.

I hadn’t seen Pepere for almost 2 years before he died, and I’d never seen him lying in a hospital bed, so the fact that he is gone is even more surreal. I think I’m not completely alone in that—I received a note from Memere recently saying that whenever anyone comes over to visit, no one wants to sit in his chair, because to all of us that will always be Pepere’s chair. I didn’t go to his funeral, so I never had any chance to see for myself that this was real and not some bizarre dream. When I went up a few weeks after the funeral everything seemed so unchanged. Pepere was such a quiet man that you could really still think that he was there, maybe just in the bedroom getting dressed or in the kitchen making his famous piña coladas.

It’s not when I think of them dying that I get teary, that doesn’t even seem like reality. It’s when I think of everything that has changed—when I realize that we won’t be going to Mema’s for Christmas, when I realize that we won’t be swimming in the pool over Thanksgiving, that we can no longer find secret passageways in the bushes in Mema’s backyard, that we won’t be learning how to play Cribbage with Pepere… those are the times when I mourn.

It was time for them to go, their bodies had lived long lives and they were tired and sick, they were shells of themselves. It’s the experiences that I wasn’t and am still not ready to let go of. That I still can’t bring myself to say goodbye to. I’m not sure if they’ll ever seem more distant, but I do know that I cherish my one surviving grandmother more than I ever knew. I’ve learned that as hard as it may be to accept my family will not always be here. That I’ll not always be here. That I should love and treasure them and fully experience every memory that we create together. Because after we’re all gone, that’s what is left. It’s the memories, the games, the places and the things that we loved that live on.

I’ll never have Christmas with Mema again, but her memory will live on in every Christmas I celebrate for as long as I live. I’ll never play Cribbage with Pepere again, or listen to his Big Band music with him, but every time I listen to Glenn Miller or count to 21 he’ll be there in that moment. I didn’t say it enough when they were alive, but I say it every time I think back on those days, "I love you and I can’t wait to see you again at the end of my road."

“The history of our grandparents is remembered not with rose petals but in the laughter and tears of their children and their children's children.  It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone.  It is in us that their history becomes a future.”  ~Charles and Ann Morse

Comments

[Mimi]

Hi, Michele sent me.

That was a very nice post. I think we all have different ways of verbally and nonverbally saying goodbye. Remember, there's no right and wrong time to say goodbye to a lost loved one.

Hugs to you.

[janey]

Very well written. Everyone expresses grief, lost and love in different ways. I agree with mimi - there's no right or wrong to it. And Michele sent me.

[kenju]

If you write about them, and detail the experiences you shared or the reasons you loved them, they will live forever in your memory and in those of your decendants.

[E]

((((((((((((hugs))))))))))) sweety. nicely written. :-)

[Nancy]

I lost my grandfather last Nov. I miss him. This is a great post, I am all weepy. Thanks.

Love the quote, I may have to borrow it ;)

[Mama]

Wonderful eulogy -- I know they are so very proud of you as we all are -- the 3 of them are probably sipping a little "Kriger" wine in a wonderful toast to their little girl!!!!

[Courtney]

I'm always envious of folks who had a good relationship with their grandparents. Mine were indifferent, but my father's aunt Ligia was in all respects our grandmother, and no one in our family has been the same since her death.

Here via Michele.

[ribbiticus]

great post. it is never easy to lose a loved one. even more so when the passing is sudden. the good memories, though, will remain for always. thanks for sharing your feelings. here via michele. :)

[Maria Morris-Burke]

Yes, there is great sadness in losing those we love and comfort in memories. I would love for my children to read this. I think sometimes that they believe I will live forever and that they take the time we have left for granted.
This was a beautiful post. Michele sent me.

[kenju]

Angela, thanks for coming by (twice). Now Michele sent me back!

[Shelley]

Angela, I feel the same way!! I dreaded Mema's passing for years - I thought it would be too difficult to deal with. So I have been so suprized at the surrealness of it too. I think of her still in her house playing dominoes or doing a crossword puzzle, like she is going to be there the next time I go to visit. I too get sad, and happy, when I recount all of the wonderful memories I shared with her. She will always be alive to me that way. Good job expressing your feelings. I have to go find a tissue box now. I love you!!

[Brittany]

yeah, what Shelley said. I wonder if there's something in the air, I've been thinking about Mema and Pepere a lot for the past few days. I'm glad you were able to get out in some sensible way what we all seem to be feeling.

[Crazy MomCat]

Wow, I can so relate to this post. My grandmother passed away over a year ago and the things you said about accepting the reality that it will always be diferent now, well that's hard for me too.

[Kendra]

Nicely put Angela. Even though I was able to see Pepere right before he passed and saw that he was gone, I still know that he is sitting in his recliner across from Memere, both of them nodding off to the sound of the baseball game on TV. We were so lucky to have him for as long as we did. I Love you!

[Becky]

There's no question it is never easy to handle death, and the holidays always make it more difficult. I'm just like you in that it's hard for me to verbalize my emotions, and I'm not sure why. In losing people around me, I've tried to be better at it, but it's still a struggle.

[RisibleGirl]

I hear things like this over and over again when I make my Hospice calls. Unless you lived with the person who passed on, it's easy to forget that they're gone.

How many times have I heard, "I still pick up the phone to call her and then I remember..."

And for what it's worth, you may have not said it enough while they were alive, but I have no doubt that they knew you loved them.