Loss

I had a great post for today, inspiration came to me last night for the topic and I was all psyched to write it but today I got sad news and now I’m having trouble organizing thoughts in my head let alone write a coherent blog post about what all of a sudden seems so trivial.

Someone I know died, not today, one day ago, but today is when I got told. I didn’t know her an exceptionally long time, almost six months, but I don’t think the depth of our feelings towards someone always need an especially long time to form. Sometimes you just happen to meet someone you connect with. She was older then me, had lived a long and full life, spent the end surrounded by those who loved her and took care of her even while she managed to maintain her independence. She was a character, someone whose personality is so large you always notice when she enters a room, it’s amazing how large of a presence she has considering she is such a tiny lady…I guess that should actually be how large of a presence she had considering she was such a tiny lady…past tense sucks.

It’s not like this is the first person I know whose died, nor (obviously) will it be the last (unless of course I die in my sleep tonight before anyone else I know has a chance to beat me to the other side but odds are doubtful since I’m fairly healthy). I’m unsure of myself with this mourning process, when I got told I didn’t cry, I didn’t all of a sudden have to sit, I didn’t have any reaction other then a softly said “oh no” and a quick shutting down of all emotions. I was in public, at work, at the beginning of my shift, an outburst of emotion would not of been appropriate so I shut it down before I had a chance to feel anything. Now, hours after my shift ended I keep thinking about it, it revolves around and around in my head, my memories of her.

I don’t pray, I have no rituals to get me through this, no fake comfort to draw on, no one to turn to, it is just me, sitting with thoughts of her in my head, thinking about how I didn’t get to say goodbye and how our last conversation wasn’t anything special, just an ordinary short conversation. She most likely didn’t even realize how fond of her I was, I hope she maybe had an inkling, a tiny hint of how great I thought she was, every time I saw her a huge smile came to my face and she always had one in return, maybe she knew from my smile? I don’t know. I’ll never know.

She went from healthy to a little health scare to dead in a week and a half, how does that happen so quickly? Not giving anyone a chance to say goodbye. Not that I wish she had a long lingering death but maybe just one more day of health so I could have seen her and talked to her once more, and how selfish is that of me? Thinking of myself when I only knew her six months, how much worse this all must be for her family, those who knew her their entire lives, who had memories going back fifty years or more. How do you accept and adjust your life to the loss of someone you knew for so long? I had trouble each and every time someone I knew died, but for the most part those people weren’t daily or even weekly fixtures in my life so my day to day existence didn’t register a change, but her daughters who saw her all the time, talked to her on the phone everyday, how do they rearrange their thoughts to accommodate this change? I guess they just will, not like they have a choice. And while they grieve, loudly or quietly, in public or private, with others or alone, I hope they realize that others also mourn the loss of this wonderful woman, this lady who brought a smile to people’s faces, who took her own approach to life and screw anyone who tried to judge her, who was fearless and funny and quirky and who will be missed, even by those who show no emotion to the news and who in public anyways will seem utterly unaffected by her absence.

Tags: death, grieve, health, mourning