Saying Goodbye.

In memory of the beautiful woman I am privileged to call grandma, I am promising myself to experience every inch of our loss.

Every minute of this will forever be etched in my memory. I carry it with me now.

Every wave of anxiety, sadness, joy, despair, numbness, courage, and everything in between. She may have left this earth but she has so much left to teach me. Sometimes that will bring me tears, other times - comfort. I have learned more about love and strength in one week than I have in 27 years of life. And this journey has not ended... we have just merely turned the page. I feel that has been the hardest lesson so far.

Life doesn't stop after you watch a loved one take their last breath... the world keeps turning and another day will come. As everything else keeps moving, I just look around and wonder how others haven't noticed... Don't they see that the sky doesn't look as bright? Food doesn't taste as good and the day feels sad... How does the rest of the world not notice? Nurses check on other patients and paperwork still needs to be filed. The outside world (as my sister so perfectly refers to it) goes to lunch and work and school and we are made to blend in. They don't feel our pain... And so we hold doors, make small talk, smile back, say "you too" in response to a friendly "Happy Easter".

If only they knew.

If only they knew that the glue in our family just became unstuck. The North in our compass is gone and I am making nice with the woman taking my coffee order. We picked out an urn and then picked up some dinner. We cry our hearts out and then have dance parties with our children. If only they knew. So I'm telling you now.

The world is missing a light. If you didn't notice, then I feel more sorry for you than for me. Because I lived in her light and I am the lucky one.

"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." - A.A. Milne