The Beginning of Dealing With Grief

Here we are, back at another Monday. This is when I normally start to talk about what I plan t write for this week.

This week is going to be a bit different.

OK, not a bit different. This is going to a lot different. A part of my life has changed in a way that requires some processing… and I feel the need to take this time to process. So, here we go.

My life took a change this weekend. Someone who had been in my life for my entire life is no longer in it anymore.

That is the most vague way possible that I can put it.

More specifically, I lost a family member on Saturday morning. My grandmother, my father’s mother, passed away. She lapsed into a coma Thursday night. She was diagnosed with terminal cancer in January. We were told 6 months.

My dad saw her the week before she passed on. He said that she looked like she was doing fine. This whole event has taken us by surprise because she was doing OK… as good as one can expect someone to be with terminal cancer.

It’s anyone’s guess why she died when she did. It could be that she felt that everyone in her family was taken care of and happy and she felt she could leave peacefully and not worry about people in her family. That’s what I would like to think. That and she was getting tired from the pain.

So, now I’m working through the process of grief.

This is where things get a little more interesting for me. I was never all that close to my dad’s parents. I don’t remember seeing them all that often. I remember visiting their house once. I would see them on Xmas and on birthdays. So, I was never particularly close to them.

I’m a bit thrown for a loop, because this is hitting me harder than I thought it would.

So, now I’m wondering why is this hitting me as hard as it is.

Perhaps it’s because my father’s parents, my grandparents have always been there. That means that this will be the first year where she won’t be there. Someone who’s been a constant in my life for the past 34 years won’t be there.

I’m also concerned about my father and my aunts and uncle. I lost a grandmother, they lost a parent.

I know that we all grieve in our own ways. I tend to use humor, self-introspection and my writing as ways to deal with negative emotions and more importantly grief.

So, here I am.

I seem to vacillate between being OK and being upset. Not too surprising. I’m trying to actually experience these feelings instead of burying them like I usually do. I need to take this time to actually experience the grief instead of what I normally do.

So, here I sit, dealing with the mix of emotions that are coming to me. All I can do is take it one day at a time. Take it slowly and pay attention to how I’m feeling. Some days will be easier than others, but all I need to do is keep trying to move forward.