One Month

While I still lived in Phoenix, I saw my grama a couple times after grampa passed away. She mentioned once or twice about how surprised she was that your heart could actually ache, when it was broken.

On Sunday it was the one month anniversary of my grampa's passing. The four weeks has gone so slowly in some ways, and so quickly in others.

In thinking about it, my heart has rebroken. My chest aches. Its good that I'm rereading "Hinds Feet" (see earlier posts), because it helps me articulate my feelings and emotions better in prayer.

When I was in Phoenix, there was just so much going on. We were doing all these things to take care of the details that surround death: find the paperwork for the car, the bank accounts, the will; get a copy of the death certificate; notify social security; pay the hospital bills. While doing all of that, we were also talking to grama daily, and it seemed like half our time was taken up with these details. The other half of the time, for me, was taken up with preparations for the move. Time went so quickly during those two weeks.

Then we were moving and I was getting settled and trying to get residency and job details sorted out. I was driving to Burbank to Ikea and to Target in Hollywood and looking up churches and DMVs and Libraries on the internet. It has been hard to be alone here for the two weeks, but I have not spent very much time reflecting, I've just been numbing myself to get through the time.

But last night, it all broke through. I realized that I have been so unaware of the day and date (its not really something I need to know, most days) that I had completely missed that the one month anniversary was Sunday. And I thought about how much I miss my grampa. How much I miss calling the park where he and grama lived and hearing him answer the phone. How much I miss grama writing at the end of an email or letter "Grampa joins me in sending all our love." How much I miss the idea of him at Christmas or in Laughlin.

I just miss him.

And I was broken-hearted, too, that I hadn't realized it was one month, so that I could talk to my mom and grama about it, and about what they are experiencing. So I wept. I wept for the loss all of us had experienced, and I felt like the Lord was so close to me during that time. The Daily Light reading that I read that night reminded me that the Lord will wipe away every tear in Heaven, and I was so glad. It actually allowed me to weep more!

I'm grateful for all the condolences from my friends. I'm thankful for the understanding of people I've been around when I was absentminded or got teary in conversation. I glad for my family, who has borne up under this strain admirably. And I'm grateful to my grama, who is trying to make a life without her dearest love, for showing me what it means to persevere and adapt.

But with all of that, I'd still rather have grampa.