“My grandmother died a little over one year ago. Her absence in this human world is felt daily. I miss her on my morning drives to work. The silence of my commute deafening as I forget she is gone, even one year later, as I reach for the phone to call her.
But it is not just the daily calls I long for. It is her voice, and her laugh. It is the comfort her voice brought to me no matter the emotion I was dealing with. It is the wisdom she bestowed so graciously and easily. I miss her. I miss it all.
The hardest thing to grasp through this grief journey is the day to day living. It is the moments of happiness, when I feel joy and look around and miss seeing her face, and feeling her presence.
I was introducing sweet potatoes to my infant the other day and through my big smile I looked at him and said out loud, ‘Gosh, she would love you.’ Then tears poured from my face. It was the first time in a few months that I had a really good hard, take your breath away cry. Suddenly all the emotions of missing her came at me at once. My infant stared at me with a sweet potato grin and I said through broken breath, ‘She would say, ‘There is Meema’s baby.’’
Outside of this, I feel so far away from her. I pray every night to dream about her in hopes that it will allow me some closeness, but the dreams never come. I look for signs, but I feel I am overthinking or over analyzing them every time. I know I am trying to make a God moment or whisper out of nothing. I don’t go to her grave site because I have never felt close to her there. Instead, I do what any person who has loved and lost does, you live day to day.
And in the day to day is usually when it happens. The unexpected moment when in the ordinary you feel your heavy heart heel just a bit.
Out of the blue, one early morning, my daughter asked me, ‘Do you miss Meema?’ Just hearing her name is enough to stop me in my tracks.
‘Of course, I miss her,’ I replied.
‘What do you miss?’ She asked.
Deep for a four-year-old but she has always been an old soul to me.
‘I miss her here. I wish she could be here to see you two,’ I said to her, referring to her and her brother.
‘But she is here Mommy,’ my four-year-old replied.
Puzzled and speechless I just looked at her little face.
‘Meema is with Jesus,’ she stated. ‘You told me she lives with Jesus.’
‘Yes, she does,’ I answered.
‘Well you know Jesus lives in our hearts. Since Meema is with Him, she is close.’
In the middle of a typical day, in the rawness of a conversation with a child, in the midst of living through grief, my daughter taught me a valuable lesson.
God is indeed always there.
The whispers I long for, and the signs that she is near. I don’t need to look so hard after all. She is indeed in my heart and her spirit and legacy live through me and each of her loved ones she touched.
I still long for her in my dreams, to turn and suddenly smell her smell, to see the red cardinal on my porch, but hearing my baby so calmly protest that she sees us and is not far, I could only help but smile knowing she was indeed right there.”
This story was submitted to Love What Matters by Ashli Mazer Workman of Backwards N High Heels. The article originally appeared here. Follow Ashli on Instagram here. Submit your story here, and subscribe to our best stories in our free newsletter here.
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