Healing

"Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future. "

Well, I've just blown back in from Santa Maria where we've finally been able to lay my grandmother back to her husband. Its been a rather emotional time for all of us in the family, mostly for my mother and her brothers and sisters.

Being at the viewing and reading during the mass was something of an eye opener for me personally. Seeing all the pictures of my grandmother and hearing the stories from my aunts and uncles made me realize how precious little I knew about my grandmother. The trials she went through before she came to the US in the 70s, and the kind of environment my aunts and uncles and mother grew up in. I had no idea about what my grandmother did to make an income while my grandfather was in Guam during the war; the earliest memories of them were the two of them picking strawberries, the biggest berries you ever seen, sweeter than sugar, and plump with red juice.

I heard stores about how strict she was with her children, and yet I've always thought of her so gentle and mellow. Doing the math, I realized that my grandmother had endured nearly 13 years without the one person who meant the most to her, and a good portion of it was full of pain, suffering, and days without memories of who she was. The grandmother I knew as a child was no longer in the shell of the woman I saw in that coffin, and hadn't been in over a decade. But, who was the woman I called my grandmother anyway? I felt I knew next to nothing about her life (hell, I didn't even know that one of my uncles was a twin, whose brother died at birth. I can't imagine losing someone like a twin so early in my life).

There is so much I wish I could have asked her while she was of whole mind and body, and now I suddenly see how much i have lost. Its not the most pleasant of feelings to feel rush onto you all at once. My mother was a wreck, but not as much as one of my aunts, whom was the eldest daughter of 8 children. Even now, I know that something like this can't be easily mended and healed, and part of me can feel that it isn't ever going to.

Sorry to have dumped this all out here, but I had things that need to be off my chest. Catharsis is often the best way to really begin the healing process. Thanks for all your condolances and kind words. I'll hang in there, cuz moving forward is what humans do best, isn't it?