Funeral

Hey, just letting you know this one is sad. Like, fr.

big sad girl energy. I went to a Phoebe concert alone (i know) in June and cried 7 times.

Something else you’ll never be prepared for is getting to adulthood and realizing your parents are like, real people. With issues. Big ones, serious ones, traumatic ones… and they just carry that with them every day into their early 60s. In the last 2 years, I have witnessed both of my parents grieve. And we all grieved heavily together as a family. And it is raw. Painful. Nauseating.

My mom lost her mom, (our Grammy, who was universally* loved). It was sudden, and unexpected. I will never forget the morning my Dad called to deliver the awful news. I just screamed. I could feel my mom’s heart ache from 300 miles away, and I knew our lives would never be the same again. I didn’t get to see her face, it was a closed casket. There are so many things I wanted her to experience with me, a wedding, a family, a whole life. She was only 83, and a good 83 too. We truly believe in signs from the universe, and we know she is always with us when we need her most. And sometimes even just to say hello in a passing dream, a sign, or something purple.

*I meant what I said, UNIVERSALLY loved. By all who knew her, and even those who didn’t. She was a leader in AA, mother of 6, Miss Mission High, huge fan of ice cream and the best person I’ve ever known.

When I was in the 3rd grade, I developed a sick obsession.

I wanted a dog.

so.

fucking.

bad.

I wrote every single ELA project about a dog, every art creation was a dog, all my stuffed animals were dogs. One tragic flaw in the story, my sister was highly allergic. Literally talk about a shit hand of fate. We tried everything, all breeds, everything. Ali broke out in hives every time. We went to dog shows, which is like comically sad, as I just admired from afar. And then I revisited the plea to my parents. PLEASE. I was 14 and starting my freshman year of high school. And that’s when we got her. The best dog in the world. I know, you thought it was yours, I am (not) sorry to be the one to tell you. Maci was the queen of the world. She was calm, even as a puppy. Ali didn’t break out in hives. We brought her home. I used to dream of having a puppy curl up at my feet, and then I had her. She used to run in the snow when she was young, and it would all clump into her fur. We’d have to blow dry her off for like an hour afterwards. But that never stopped her. She sat with me when I was sick, she came to all my high school sports games. She was at every sleepover. When I went to college I would call home just to talk to her. I still go home and think about being excited to see her. But she’s not there. She has my heart. She got sick in February and it was fast after that. I came home, and we spent one final day together. I’m not gonna lie, I’m actually crying pretty hard while writing this. I know a lot of this is still sitting on the surface for me, and I never fully let these feelings out. Of course, I will always miss her. She was exactly what I wanted, everything I needed, and my best friend forever. Macie Gracie Groosa Roosa Weenie Chene Bene Lene.

Grief is one of those feelings that fundamentally alters your human existence. You are never the same after you’ve felt grief. It stings your whole body, but makes you numb at the same time. It makes you want to scream and hit things and learn how to reverse time. Wish you had called more. Wish you spent more time. Wish you could have one more afternoon. Its a feeling that compounds. Each fresh new wound reopens each old one if not properly healed. They bleed into each other into one gaping hole and you can feel it in your body. Hollow. Empty. Full of grief. It makes you tired all the time. God help you if you’re already depressed. Fuck else would you possibly be able to do, besides respirate, and even that feels like its too much work.

I don’t know healthy coping mechanisms, I don’t know how to process the feelings. I don’t want to feel the pain. I avoid. I look to my parents, and I see my mom shoving it deep down so that everything is fine and I see my dad pour another glass and everything is fine. Then I see myself, tumbling forward- feet barely making impact on the ground. I wrote a poem about that feeling. I’ll share it sometime, maybe. If you’d like. When I talk to my therapist, she points out my avoidance, she asks me “what I’m going to do for me” and every time I cringe because I’ll have to start sweeping some shit out from under the rug. I’d rather avoid it. Like the Alien Monster in NOPE, I’m not looking it in the eye. Its leaving me alone. But its the cloud that’s never moving. (this is only a bar if you’ve seen the movie, and if you haven’t seen the movie and you’re like wtf is she saying just trust meeee its a bar- proceed). Grief is ugly and thats why people don’t want to talk about it.

My dad lost his brother in June. I lost my uncle. My cousins lost their dad. My dad lost his big brother. My dad is one of eight kids. They are a rowdy bunch, but above all, they love the hell out of each other. Their lives were nothing short of easy, and when my Dad’s Dad died when they were young- Uncle Jack was the eldest son and man of the house. I know my dad looked to him with the utmost respect and reverie as a younger brother could. My dad is no stranger to grief, having lost both parents, other family, and some friends, he has felt these ugly feelings before. This time felt different, like the cracks are finally starting to show on this marble facade of a man that is my father. He is the rock for so many, I’ve always worried that he was chipping away at himself for the sake of preserving others. As an adult, I can see and know that is true. I’ve been told not to worry, but when you see the human in a superhero’s eyes, it shocks you a bit. Again, grief struck us in such a way that has fundamentally changed our family. We’re talking about serious things now. I’m seeing my parents as humans. It’s not easy.

I actually had to walk away from this writing process, so I’m here now. The following day. I can’t begin to tell you how much more I need to cry. My eyes were swollen when I woke up this morning from last night’s emotional story telling. The rug feels like its been slightly lowered, and some of the shit has finally been swept out. There will always be more tears to cry for the love that has been lost. A lot of those feelings haven’t gone through me, they are still in me. When we share stories of grief, humans often remind one another of even darker more tragic stories of their lives. I was lucky not to truly know grief until I was an adult, but sometimes it doesn’t always feel lucky. I’m still working with those ugly nasty feelings and finding out how to live with them. Maybe the most painful truth is that grief never leaves you. It hides in places you don’t expect. One minute, you’re listening to music and the next, Daylight by Harry Styles has you dramatically sobbing on the couch.

My heart goes out to my friends who have lost.

The only way out is through.

As I mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of avoidance. Love it. Can’t get enough of it. One major problem though, that is not GOOD. Avoidance manifests in different ways for me. In therapy, I try to change the subject. She doesn’t let me, though. I plunge head first into work, rearranging all the furniture in my apartment, online shop, literally anything else but feel the sick and awful feelings I need to in order to keep moving forward- healing them. And the only way out is through. Nobody wants to feel these feelings, but its the only way to learn how to manage them. I’ve rushed past these issues and really tried to push over them. If I don’t see it, its not there. But it is, and it looms beneath the surface- closer to the top than you really may know. I can’t let fester in me like I see my parents doing it now- swallowing it down until its just another brick in the pile of complicated feelings. I feel guilty that my sister has been home for so much of the pain that I’ve only heard about on the phone. I want to soak it all up and make the sadness go away from my family- to take it from them and make it mine to dispose of. But instead, my heroes are becoming human. Our lives have been stained with the dark smudges of grief.

I actually had a different post in mind entirely, but I started writing last night and this flew out of me. It felt good to talk about. Thanks for reading, I love you.