Losing a loved one in the middle of any post-secondary year really guts you in ways that make it difficult to verbalize at times.
In February 2023, I unfortunately (and quite suddenly), lost my grandmother. It was so surreal at the time because one weekend I visited home and spent time with her, and the next, she was gone. I’m coming up on the three-year anniversary of her passing and around this time every year I find myself reflecting on how I’ve grown as person through my grief. I often think about if she’d be proud of who I am today and what she would say to me if she was here. In honour of her three-year celebration-of-life, here are three lessons that I’ve embraced through my grief.
- . EMBRACING MY VULNERABILITY
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My grandma was my best friend–someone who I shared everything with–and I felt so exposed after her passing. I no longer had my closest confidant to laugh with at the end of a particularly bad day, nor did I have the person who would give me the best advice. I think that over three years, I learned to become comfortable in feeling exposed or vulnerable simply because it reminded me that this feeling stems from the privilege of having such a close relationship with my grandma. I like to think that in the moments where I feel vulnerable, because I don’t know what to do and cannot ask her for her advice anymore, is the universe is subtly telling me that I should take a risk and trust myself.
- . REMINDING MYSELF OF SELF-COMPASSION
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Life is so short, but we often don’t realize how short it is until something is taken away from us. The instances where I could have spent more time with my grandma really loomed over me, especially in the immediate months following her passing. I felt so angry with myself that I had let other things get in the way of the time I could have spent with her. Even though this way of thinking emphasizes how precious life really is, it completely ignores any form of self-compassion. Over these past three years, I’ve tried my best to give myself grace and reassurance: the handful of times something interfered with the time I could have spent with my grandma did not take away from all the years that we did share together. And through this, I found myself reminiscing on our happy memories more frequently–something that continues to bring me great comfort.
- . ACCEPTING THAT SOME DAYS ARE HARDER THAN OTHERS
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Grief is funny because it comes in waves. Some days, the wave is catastrophic and crashes down on me without warning. Other days, the wave is a gentle lull or a fuzzy buzz in the back of my head. I found that riding the wave is the best thing I can do for myself because it reminds me that even though some days might be harder than others, there will be days where the wave will feel like a gentle lull; it’s just a cycle of accepting your feelings and not suppressing them.
Of course I wish that I had more time with my grandma–I mean 20 years feels like nothing when she practically raised me. I wish I could introduce my friends to her, I wish I could share recipes with her, I wish she could have seen me graduate. But, after three years, these wishes carry hiraeth and not pain, and I know she would love to hear that. I hope that everyone can find a way to best navigate their grief and have no shame in however long it takes to do so.
Just to say my internal monologue out loud, I hope my grandma is proud of the person I’ve become today, and the person I want to eventually become in the future. I hope that I’m doing her proud with all that I wish to accomplish in life <3