In the three weeks since my grandmother passed away, I’ve been grappling a lot with the meaning of grief. The only conclusion I can draw is that I know nothing. Maybe the grief is too fresh for me to discern any meaning, or maybe there isn’t supposed to be a meaning at all.
My grandmother lived with my mother and me, and she played a big role in raising me. She lived to be ninety-five and had spent the last several years in decline, a gentle descent into the afterlife– if any of it could be called gentle.
I rehearsed for her death much like how I used to for my plays in high school because I still can’t go off script for anything. I eulogized her many times in my head, then chastised myself for possibly jinxing the inevitable.
It wasn’t so much for the melodrama rather than trying to put a bandage down before the wound even appears, flinching right before someone punches you.
A College Guide to Grieving a Loved One
I can’t rightfully say that I’m in the anger stage of grief, because I was an angry person long before this; at least now it has a direction to go in. I suppose I can be grateful for that.
I also sit a lot, unable to do much more than think in endless circles. Writing this article will likely exhaust me. For all the places my anger has to go now – the apartment thermostat, the person in front of me walking too slowly, the fact that the world is still spinning – my thoughts have no destination.
The day after the funeral I came back to campus, everyone asked me if I was doing okay and I stared back at them in bewilderment. What wasn’t so shocking was them asking if I was okay, but rather implying that I possibly wasn’t. It took the dust settling around the entire affair for me to see the mess I was bogged down in.
Grief is funny like that. Right when you swear you’re doing fine, or at least just doing better, it comes up to drag you back down. Perhaps that’s the one thing I do know about it.
My grandmother was a very pragmatic person; she wouldn’t want me to struggle through my assignments and work deadlines, but she couldn’t have possibly known what it would be like to grieve her. Grieving her feels like an exposed live wire, yet like something that’s always lived inside me; it mixes seamlessly with the love I have for her, like the nastiest, best kind of grief.
Navigating Loss and Grief in College
We didn’t have the typical grandmother/granddaughter relationship. She was not the typical grandmother. She wasn’t cold per se, but she kept her emotions and many other things close to her chest. We were often at odds with one another, my mom playing the role of referee and/or buffer. We were both reserved, and stubborn; I felt the weight of her expectations in a way I never did with my mom.
I’m not quite sure what I’m trying to say with this if I’m being honest, but these words needed their spot on the page. Writing is the only thing I can do when I feel immobilized. One of the only direct compliments my grandmother ever gave was that she enjoyed my writing.