Lessons

I have been busy reading the last two days. I don't normally give myself the opportunity to read. I love to read. I love to read just about anything, and I read really fast. I read To Kill a Mockingbird yesterday. What an amazing book! I really enjoyed it. It was moving and so enlightening. I never got the chance to read it in high school, so I saw it at Costco at the beginning of Spring Break and decided to read it. All I have to say is WOW!
Today, I read Tuesdays With Morrie, another Costco impulse buy. I thouroughly enjoyed this one also. It was what I needed right now, considering all that is going on with my grandmother. I have come to many conclusions about that whole situation.
I had a lengthy conversation with my mom this morning. About many things, mostly my grandmother. I have come to a place regarding my grandma that has given me much peace. I understand that these walls were not built because of anything that I did. It's really amazing how quickly I went from an adult woman who was fairly confident to a hurt, little girl wondering why her grandma doesn't love her.
My grandma led a very difficult life. As did so many from her generation. I can't even for a moment begin to understand the hardship she experienced throughout her childhood. The Depression, a World War! Wow. She lived through alot. Her father wasn't a very nice person, she, for whatever reasons, was unable to rise above those experiences. She became a guarded, hard woman who lives in a world she created. I understand that none of that has anything to do with me. I get it. I accept it. to be hurt. I don't think that is cold or hard of me.
I realized just how grateful I am that I was blessed with such a wonderful paternal grandma. She loves me. Fiercely. Even now that I am in my 30's. She loves me with the same ferocity as when I was a baby struggling to live. I was blessed again with the incredible honor of my husband's grandma. She loved me as though I were her own. Her death last year impacted my life in ways I have yet to see. She left a gaping hole in our lives. We love her so much. She allowed me to experience the most beautifully, heartbreaking moment of my life. I was welcomed to her deathbed and held her hand and stroked her hair and kissed her face as she made the transition from this world to her home in heaven. I will forever be grateful that Grandma Eunice touched my life. I will grieve her loss forever. As I will my own grandma when her time comes. As I do my grandpa.
I have learned so much about myself and illness and death and respect through this sickness my grandmother is experiencing. It has given me so much appreciation for the ones that love me, and so much sadness for what I know she is missing out on. The saddest to me is that she doesn't even know what she is missing out on. She is missing out on knowing my daughter, she hasn't seen what a lovely, gracious young woman my daughter is growing into. I watched her on St. Patrick's Day as she danced at a retirement facility here in town. She moved me to tears. She was so gracious and kind to each elderly person who spoke to her. She shook their hands, looked them in the eye and smiled. She was beautiful, not because of her outside, but because of the inner radiance, the kindness, the Grandma Eunice in her. My Grandma Lorraine will never see that. She won't know the tender heart in my son T. How empathetic he is. How he is so willing to love. So eager to please. She won't know the sparkle in C's eyes. My quiet boy. The one that feels but doesn't let you know what he feels. She won't recognize his smile. She won't see the hilarity in my M. How he loves to make you laugh. She would barely know them if they passed her in the street, because of her choice. That makes me sad for her. She is the one missing out on so much.
I am blessed. Even though I have been hurt, I am blessed by so much more. I am blessed with the wonderful grandparents I was given. I am blessed with four beautiful, loving, caring, fun children. Children I can share with my aunt and uncle. Children I am struggling to raise to be gracious, kind, empathetic souls. I am so thankful for that opportunity.
My grandma is going to live who knows how much longer, a lot or a little, as no one knows the time they are to go...but, I am at peace within myself with the relationship that I can't change. It isn't what I desire, but it is what I got.
I am now and will always be there for my mom while she does the right thing caring for her mom. She is showing such integrity. I am seeing a strength in my mom that I never saw before. I hope that continues.
In Tuesdays With Morrie, Morrie talks to the author about detaching from pain. Feeling it and seeing it for what it is and then detaching from it. That so describes what I have done regarding my grandma. I have let the pain of rejection wash over me. I have felt it and fought it for years. I decided to surrender to it, to feel it and see it for what it is, and now, I can detach myself from it. I think it is something ongoing, detaching. But, I acknowledge it and move away from it. It gives me such peace. There is such wisdom in that. The other thing from that book that I took away and I believe will be become part of me, is "Love each other or perish."