A Grief Observed

This post is about a week late, but I definitely have thought about it frequently. It's been over a month now since my grandma's funeral. It's still so surreal to me that she is gone. In fact, I have sort of "replaced" her in my prayer- for 24 years she  has been in my prayer in the same place!- and so now I have to remember that she is gone and I put other people in her stead. But oddly enough, she is still in my prayers, as I'm hoping she is watching over me and knows that I am thinking of her. And that right there is so surreal. I still can't believe she is gone. It just does not seem like there was time for her to get ill and die. I wonder how it is for her, what she's doing and if my prayers get delivered to her. I always hoped that when she died, I would "know"; that I'd get some sort of premonition or feeling. Well that didn't really happen. About the moment she died, I was walking through a mall- I checked my phone to see the time, and she crossed my mind. But it wasn't really a thought of death; rather, I thought "maybe she will end up living for longer than we think. Maybe she will be around for a few more weeks". Wishful (and selfish) thinking I guess. Instead she died at that moment, because when I got back to my hotel, my mom called me and told me the time of death, and it was just about when I was thinking of her. But I didn't get a burning kiss on my cheek, I didn't see her in the mall, nothing like those stories you sometimes hear.

Anyways, C.S. Lewis penned a memoir called "A Grief Observed", in which he deals with the grief he has for his recently-deceased wife. It's an interesting piece, and probably the most interesting thing about it is that his experience is really nothing like mine. And that is what this piece is usually heralded for: that everyone's experience in grief is different.

Granted, I lost it at the funeral. I couldn't hold back anything, I just felt so hopeless as I blubbered away. But other than that, I've stayed pretty controlled. Except when I think about talking to her. I hope she knows I'm thinking of her. It's just so weird to experience grief, because I've never really had to deal with such a close death. My other grandparents died when I was significantly younger, and while they were amazing, the relationship was just not quite as developed. Anyways, I hope time will heal the wound.