One year ago today I was waiting.
BUT...but...but...I am tired of writing about grief.
I want to write about LIFE.
There is this constant pull in life, a joy, a sorrow, some symbiotic tandem working together, always.
The bigger picture pervades my brain most of the time. I suppose I don't live a "conventional life".
Growing up, I spent almost the entire Sunday at church. I learned about theology and God and Jesus Christ. How there was a specific "holy way" to live. But I didn't really see it put into practice. So, I decided to not live that way anymore. I just want to be the way God made me, I am all light and all darkness. Isn't this true? All good, all bad? Paradox? Maybe.
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She's there somewhere in the ether of time. Floating above me. Watching over those she loves. She's here in my heart, in the heart of those who knew and loved her.
Today I spoke to my Grandma. We spoke of how she never knew her father, since he died when she was only twelve. He was ill for many years while she was growing up and she never had a chance to ask him things. Like what his favorite food was, or stories about growing up. He passed away in May 1947 and she still grieves his loss to this day. I understand that.
I cannot grieve anymore.
For thirty-three years I had a mother who loved me. A mother who watched her younger siblings have babies, and feared she would never have a child...then I came along.
A beautiful woman, who taught me to sing hymns and praises to God, read character building stories, sewed little dresses for me to wear, made me french toast and teddy bear pancakes. And that was just when I was young.
She only wanted the best for her children. I have so many memories, ALIVE in my heart.
Kate was not perfect. She could be sarcastic and biting at times.
Because we spent so many years together, she knew me so well and I knew her so well. When she was leaving us many times all she would say was, "ask Sarah, she knows what I want." I knew because I knew her. She never told me what she wanted. She just knew that I knew. How's that for a symbiotic psychotic relationship?
And as I watched the body that gave me life, wasting away some little bird-like creature...
I knew her favorite food, her stories, her laugh, her belief, her hands, her hair, her legs...
I hold them within to be shared someday.
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When I cry now, they're not sorrowful tears.
Kate feared one thing. Leaving behind her children. She told me that she was most worried about me. I don't want her to be.
We can only do what is right for ourselves. I truly believe that when we learn to move on, to embrace life, even though life can be a sadistic motherfucker, we can really be where we are supposed to be.
I've got my plans. I write them out, because I KNOW there is no prescription for true happiness. We are all mites of insignificance at the foot of some vaster master plan.
Follow your heart, sounds trite and stupid right? But it's true. Do what you need to, love...hate...kick out your feet...grab life by its balls and just do what you want. I know people who act like their life is over. They choose to stagnate and cannot free themselves from sorrow.
It is time for me to stop my sobbing...the Kinks say it best:
I will write about life, live and be happy. I won't live in a box. It is time for me to live.
