Today has been a long, emotional day. The Lizard's Aunt K passed away last Tuesday, her memorial was today.
I'm beginning to think that it's almost better to be in the thick of things than it is to be on the periphery. With my grandmother, nearly two years ago, the memorial services held little emotion for me. For the 1-2 weeks prior, my parents and I had been in her home, making arrangements, pulling together pictures and information and things for her memorial. We buried her privately: just my mom, dad, me, the guy from the mortuary and the grave digger. We said good bye. We held each other. We cried together. And we laughed and cried together as we sifted through her treasures and dealt with idiots from her insurance who did not understand any of the following phrases: she's no longer with us, she passed away, she's deceased, etc. He finally "got" it when I said quite bluntly, "She's dead. Do you need to see a death certificate?"
Anyway, when we finally got to the memorial services, my grieving was done. I had said good bye and made my peace with events. In a way, the services were anticlimactic (there were two, for the benefit of friends and extended family).
Today was definitely not the same. My emotions are still raw, and fresh, and bubbling to the surface quite easily. This week I've had to focus on living life and moving forward with everything else, not reminiscing or laughing at the fun times or crying that she's gone. Very little of my grieving was done until today. It was bottled inside, simmering quietly. It's so hard to say good bye under those circumstances. It's much easier to be in the middle, moving through the grief one step at a time, one memory at a time, until you have digested each small piece of the process. Today was like trying to gain control of a fully charged fire hose; it's nearly impossible as it whips around erratically.
The one thing that has helped most today is the following thoughts from Bishop Brent:
What is dying? I am standing on the sea shore. A ship sails to the morning breeze and starts for the ocean. She is an object of beauty and I stand watching her until at last she fades on the horizon, and someone at my side says, 'She is gone' Gone where? Gone from my sight, that is all. She is just as large in the masts, hull and spars as she was when I saw her, and just as able to bear her load of living freight to its destination. The diminished size and total loss of sight is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says, 'she is gone' there are others who are watching her coming, and other voices take up the glad shout, 'there she comes' - that is dying. Bishop Brent
