I wrote this partially a long time ago and partially yesterday, the day before my grandmother’s funeral.
We have all been sharing & remembering so many moments over the past few days but I have been thinking about the impacts grandma had on all of us and how we impacted her
We often don’t see eye to eye about things but after cooling down she always called back. Willing to listen and re-evaluate her own assumptions
We talked about so much. I saw her joyful, I saw her cry. I saw her furious I saw her protective I saw her determined and I admired them all for her commitment to be. To never stop feeling and learning and asking questions
If we live long enough, we experience loss so profound our hearts can’t hold it. They have to grow to be able to hold it.
She was so hard on herself but from the outside all I ever saw was someone who loves with all the strength she gained through living.
Someone told me once that Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin never died. They became music.
Who they are lives through the beauty they created and the people they continue to inspire. Those things she helped to instill in all of us echo in the music we make, in our generosity, and in the grace we show each other
There’s something so inspiring about that I haven’t been able to shake. Something that has hit me more since DelDel passed. You feel everything more acutely, you feel connected to those around you more strongly, you feel your bones straining under the weight of all the choices yet to be made
We are profoundly connected by grief. To see my dad cry, my brother break, my mother weep and to do it together to hold one another up by our own exhausted weight and our determination to be here. now. with each other
Death ties us to the living
I think in a way that’s the real gift that grandma gave us. The drive to love a little louder, to connect to those a little further, to hug a little tighter. Because we love her we miss her and know that we don’t do it alone