4 months

Dear grandma,

It's been four months since you've been gone. There are some days when I feel ok, good even. I'll laugh and I'll be silly and normal. I'll have class and I'll be distracted with my assignments. I'll go out dancing with my friends or shopping with my mom, and I'll be ok. There are some days that are worse than others. On these days your absence is tangible and when I'm surrounded by family and friends, I try to suppress any feelings of melancholy that strike because I don't want to be sad, nor do I want to burden anyone with my sadness. I think about what I wrote in your eulogy:

"And though we are no longer able to create new memories, the memories we have made, we hold onto for dear life. For it is those memories that we hold that will enable us to keep living in a world without you there, to laugh with us, to cry with us, and to be with us."

I conjure up memories of you. They're usually the simple things: sitting next to you at breakfast, walking around the mall, watching Jeopardy, making you tea. Just last night, I pictured you sitting next to me in the van on our way to dinner. I imagined making you laugh, or making you roll your eyes at me. In these moments, I actually believe that you are still here. That I can call you, and you'd answer your phone. That I'll go to your house, and you'll be in your room waiting for me. Just as quickly as these moments appear, they vanish. Once they're gone is when it hurts the most and I feel so stupid for believing that you're still here and I feel so helpless because I can't do any of these things. There's this deep longing I have inside of wanting to see your face or hear your voice or hold your hand. This is when I miss you most.

The other night I couldn't stop thinking about you. I can't listen to Christmas music without thinking about you, I can't watch "White Christmas" or "Holiday Inn" without thinking about you, which makes me realize just how difficult celebrating Christmas without you is going to be. These thoughts are overwhelming and I'm consumed by the sadness that accompanies your absence. I thought about this upcoming Christmas. It'll be the first Christmas without you. It pains me to think that you won't be here. This time last year we brought you back to Concord for the last time. I remember being in your room in our house in Temecula packing. I left all of your summer clothes like you told me to. As I packed your sweaters and leggings I tried to suppress the thought that you may never come back to Temecula, to our home, and to that very room where I was folding your clothes. This time last year I stayed with you in the hospital. I had finals, but while you slept, I would write my papers. I'd drive back and forth from Fullerton and I'd sleep on that little cot in your room by the window. On nights when you couldn't sleep we'd watch old noir films on Netflix. I savored these moments I'd have with you, not knowing when you'd be gone. All those times I'd hug you, you'd tell me to loosen my grip and I didn't want to for fear of losing you. I look back and I think we didn't have enough time. We would never have enough time.

I read a lot of poetry. It's strange, for poetry brings me both comfort and grief. Comfort, because I find so much beauty in the language and the images it holds. Grief, because of the candid moments of despair the author evokes in mere words that often reflect my own feelings. However, in poetry, the feeling that transcends above all others is hope. I read to experience hope and to bask in the solace it brings. I've learned that poetry is in many ways like prayer. It provides warmth and an openness of heart. W.H. Auden, a modernist poet whose works have provided me with moments of both inspiration and desolation, once said:

It's clear that "Life" as we know it ends with death, and one can only pray that one can make a good end. So long, too, as we walk the earth, we have the duty to remember our dead, and, if we possibly can, with more joy than grief.

So though my sadness will never fade, and though it may be stronger now with the loss of you so new, I find hope in poetry, in your memory, and in the lessons I've learned from you. You were kind and compassionate, beautiful and brave, patient and strong-- qualities which you have instilled in all of those you've touched and all those you've left behind. Though this Christmas brings forth feelings of anxiety and distress, I will attempt to remember you in joy and in love.

It's been four months since you've been gone and I'm still learning to let go.

Thinking of you always,

Tricia

Grandma & grandpa, 24 December 2010.