Gran

Why is it when someone close to you dies you want to call them all the time? Gran died last week and I find myself saying "oh, I should call Granny and tell her that". Only I can't. I guess I had these feelings when she was alive too. I find myself missing her dearly. She was my mother in law for 13 years and my friend for 8. I'm not sure if it has really hit me yet.  I have listened to her son's sadness and my childrens sadness. I have my own sadness. Of course, the focus is on her children and grandchildren. They have lost the most. But, I have also lost. I have lost a woman who got me through many a things in my life. Her common sense and kind heart was open to me anytime I needed it. I needed it a lot. I need it now and she isn't here to give it to me. I can recall our last conversation. She did not want me to get off the phone. Everytime I told her I should let her go because she sounded tired, she would start a new topic. We spoke for 2 1/2 hours. Did she somehow know that would be our last conversation? Probably not. I have so many memories of her. She was such a force in all our lives. To each person I imagine she meant something different. To me, she was stability, common sense, and unconditional in her love for me.
There will be no more bags of useless stuff on my porch, no more messages on my machine where she is laughing so hard you can't make out what she's saying, so she calls back to say it all over again and she's still laughing so hard she finally gives up and hangs up mid sentence, no more words of advice, no more phone calls on Mother's Day, no more sharing of recovery, no more anything. And this makes me incredibly sad. She was an amazing woman and her kindness to me these past several years will stay in my heart. Her honesty and common sense were often interupted by her generous and loving heart.
May she be roaming free out there. Free of the pain she lived in. Free of the secrets she kept. May she just finally be free.

jb