Six Years Later

Dear Gramma,

Time has passed and you've gone with it. Six years ago this month. It simultaneously seems like a lot and a little, depending on how you look at it. Depending on how much my heart misses you on any given day. Depending on whether or not I'm thinking about you, remembering you, missing you.

The missing- it never ends. It subsides, it lessens. It doesn't linger the way it used to. If I'm not careful, if I'm not on guard, thoughts of you will sneak in and the pain of missing you will roar its ugly head and make its presence known, so loudly and so clearly that I have no choice but to break down in a heap of tears.

But it never ends.

Things have changed.

Like your house. It is now green and white on the outside, blue and gray on the inside. It is calm and quiet. It is bright and light and beautiful, like you.

There are hummingbirds that still visit, but instead of stopping by the feeder that would hang outside the dining room window, they have made a teeny tiny nest on the porch swing. We do not use the swing anymore as we wish not to disturb them. It's more than that, though. You're not there to swing with. That was something reserved to you and grandpa, and now it too isn't the same.

I just got out the old Rummikub set. The legs to one of the boards are still missing. I have been through every inch of your house and still I could not find them. I know how much you loved that game. I wish I had played it with you more often. I try not to think about things like this, all the things I should've done. It is too much to bear, and I know better than to waste wishes on the past.

Mom and I still go for walks around the park. The trees are bigger and everything looks greener, but for me it still remains the park you and I would visit the last few years of your life, when I would take you out in your wheel chair for some fresh air.

Christmas is spent at my house now, but I kept your old Christmas tree. I keep it in the closet, where it's always been. I keep it for the future. I imagine future Christmas' at your house, with hot cocoa on snowy nights, when I have little ones gathered around the tree. I want them to have the same experience I did, all the while knowing it could never be the same because you won't be there.

When I go back and visit, I make tea you would have had with me- and think of you. I hand wash the dishes at the sink you stood at for years- and think of you. I play the CD's I burned for you, I take Samson for a walk around your neighborhood, I stare at your window plant shelves, now void of plants- and think of you.

I pull out the old photo albums I put together for you and look back over the years. I just made a new one with all the photos of my wedding. I am the only one that will most likely ever see it or even know that it's there, but somehow it felt wrong not to make you one. I wish you had been there. I wish you were in the pictures with me, contained within that book. You would have loved the wedding. You would love him. His favorite color is blue, just like yours.

Death is selfish, and I am selfish for wishing it undone.

This is yet another wasted wish.

I miss you.

I will never stop missing you.


P.S.

Thanks for always posing in pictures like this with me. You are the reason for so many of my happy moments.