The Only Way To Make Sense

I know who I am is most at work when the first thing I can bring myself to do after physically processing an event, is to verbally do so. To lay here in this bed with the window cracked for almost two hours now - letting every raindrop bring with it a new memory and a new hope - finding myself filling up like a cup on a pendulum - toppling just as the contents err on the side of being too much. And then righting itself to be filled up again. I'm hoping to find, in this chaos of memories, regrets, and grief - some sense of understanding, if any at all.

What I know and feel right now is a loss inexplicable.

To know that the woman I think of every time I uncover a new gray hair of my own... is gone from this earth. To know that her occasional e-mails about topics related mostly to distant streams of our family tree that only she would know... are gone. To know that a period of my early childhood was spent, her and my grandfather supporting and loving and providing a place to be and yet so much of my later life of wishing to reclaim the distance... is over. To think of her dry humor, shared with my grandfather's - and how she carried that - among a million other things - down from the Bean side of the family to give to us. 

I think of quilts and clocks and cat hair and salty ocean air. I think of sleeping on a mattress in the back of a van on the way to see my brand new baby sister. I think of eating french onion soup, toast with marmelade, cranberry sauce steeped in orange zest, celery with cream cheese and olives, and the Schwan's delivery truck. I think of the day they gave us our first computer, after putting up with my long hours of usage on her's during visits to their house.

Their house. A place I have not been in so long, and yet colors so much of my early childhood memories; those I've mentioned already barely scratching the surface.

I think now of my Grandfather. I can't imagine the state his heart and mind are in after spending almost fifty years with a woman who is no longer here, at least in body. His quiet, tall stature seems only matched by her gentle and yet still strong presence. My heart breaks to think of his own unique sadness in our family's loss.

And I can barely stand to think of my mom, if only to maintain any sense of composure or comfort. Our few minutes on the phone this morning were spent mirroring each others grief; I felt so helpless. Because as much as my grief is strong, it only increases as it finds its way closer to the trunk of our family tree.

And still, no sense.

Just loss.

Some joy, but not enough, just yet.

My Grammie has passed on.