Bereavement
August 18, 2009emily 2 Comments »John’s maternal grandmother died last week, rather suddenly and, although she’d been sick, rather unexpectedly. I always knew we’d get the phone call, I just didn’t expect it to come so soon. You know? The funeral was this past Saturday and through the weekend I couldn’t help but think about my grandfather’s funeral, six years ago this November, and how surreal death is for the living. The phone call, out of the blue, with the news. The hastily made plans to get where you need to be, making sure you’ve got the right clothing and wondering why, when you like black so much, you’ve got so few black clothes. The funeral, however ornate or unadorned. The goodbye, or goodbye for now, depending on your beliefs. And then the rush to get back to life that marches on, inexorably, all the while dealing with a hole in your heart that never quite closes.
I don’t know how to end this blog post, quite honestly. Maybe there isn’t a good way to end it. Maybe that’s as it should be.
Posted on August 18th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Lovely. Just lovely. My condolences to you both.
Posted on September 1st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I fear the phone. If the phone rings at an unexpected time (for me that range is 10pm to 8am), I always expect the worst. It’s a dreadful feeling and I wish I could shake it (maybe it’s great news that JUST CAN’T WAIT!), but it is the side effect of getting the worst news of my life by phone from a private number.
Again, my condolences to you and John.