Grieving the [expected] loss of a loved one was a new experience for me. I did what I do when I am stressed: withdrew from the world. In the first week after the news was shared, I read something like 2,500 pages. Escapism at it's finest. Reading consumed most of my day. Some days I'd hardly put clothes on, and others I would forget to eat. As the year got rolling, I found a job and began having things to do, so I had some structure and started living normally again. Throughout the year, Nana started to lose her ability to speak. Communication began to rely more on typing or writing. Eventually, Nana's motor skills deteriorated as well. Being out of town and thus removed from the situation, it was easy for me to ignore it. When I would go home to KC, however, and visit Nana, of course I would see the changes. Those visits tended to rock my world a little bit.
As the year went on, I got better about handling my visits with Nana. In actuality, I felt very isolated in my feelings. How bizarre that, while grieving for the same person for whom my whole family was grieving, I felt alone and like I couldn't share my experience. Whenever I had felt that way in life, Nana would receive my thoughts and feelings, enter into that isolation with me, and subtly coax me out of it. Nana being largely the source of those feelings, though, made me feel like talking to her wasn't an option.
I did my best to function in life that year. Life started changing: I got a new job, my private voice studio tripled in size, I moved into a new home, and bought a car. I made it all the way to the fall of that year without facing my genuine feelings. One of my visits to KC, I almost left without going to see Nana. I had forgotten about it. Fortunately, someone accidentally reminded me. The realization that I had forgotten Nana was an awful feeling. So, naturally, I was emotional going into that visit with her, which turned out to be exactly what I needed. I walked in, saw her in her wheelchair, and started sobbing. She asked me the truest "Nana question" that there ever was: "What are you thinking?" As Nana and I typed back and forth to one another since she couldn't talk, and I was unable to at that moment (sobbing), I confessed that I missed her. Though she was still physically in my life, I felt like I had already lost her. That conversation is now one of my most cherished memories. She sat there, working hard to type to me, and comforted me. She drew me out of my isolation, loved me, and told me that it would be okay.
In October, Nana got to meet my best friend, Jasper; something she had wanted to do for a long time. In November, Nana got to come back home for Thanksgiving: I did all the cooking. The day after Thanksgiving, all of her children, and almost all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren gathered for a reunion with Nana, knowing that it would likely be the last time some of us saw her. It was lovely. We looked at old slides from her years as a young parent, ate food, shared stories, and loved one another. At one point, I was sitting with Nana, encouraging my cousins to talk to her as normally as they would if she could verbally respond (it's a bit uncomfortable at first if you aren't used to it), and Nana reached over and grabbed my hand. Though she couldn't speak, I know what was said in that one gesture. It seems small and easy to us, but moving was difficult for her, and this was a smooth and direct motion with a firm squeeze. She expelled a good amount of energy for that.
A few weeks later, on December 16th, Nana died. We knew it was coming, so I was able to go say good-bye and be with my family. I cannot express the gratitude I have for Nana. She raised me, she enabled me to pursue music through my life, taught me to cook and bake, demanded authenticity from me, encouraged me to be the best person I can be, and, most of all, she loved me relentlessly. Truly, I miss her every day.
Grief is a weird thing. I have not been able to write this post until now, whether out of fear of the emotion, or lack of understanding, or feelings of debilitating loneliness. The year 2016, and the early part of 2017, has been the most isolated time of my life. I firmly advocate genuine communication, honest appraisal of one's well-being and emotional state, and openness with our loved ones. Yet, I have not done those things. Part of it is because I didn't know how. How do you share these feelings when you don't think anyone will get it? How do you add your own burden to someone else's? I don't know the answers, but I know that I'm tired of living like this. A life in isolation and confinement is hardly a life at all.
Nana has sailed across smooth, clear waters, into a new existence with Jesus. As Easter is near, a day when we celebrate Jesus' victory of death, it takes a new meaning for me. Nana is made whole once again. She is on a brand new journey in Heaven experiencing Life the way it was meant to be. As she left this earth, she got to rise up and go Home for the first time. She is made new.
Lay down your sweet and weary head
Night is falling; you’ve come to journey's end
Sleep now and dream of the ones who came before
They are calling from across the distant shore
Across the Sea a pale moon rises
The Ships have come to carry you home
And all will turn to silver glass
A light on the water, grey ships pass
Into the West
