My grandmother has hours left. I knew it was coming, but at the same time I didn’t. Not the exact time. Certainly not in the exact way it is happening. She is in pain. She is a version of herself as the Alzheimer’s continues to take hold. That part is hard to accept. I wish we were all guaranteed peace and comfort at the end of life. I wish we were owed a mind full of beautiful memories. But life doesn’t make us promises other than perhaps that loss is inescapable. No one makes it out of this life alive. I hope so deeply that when she passes this life and enters the next that she feels weightless and free. I hope my grandfather is there to embrace her. I hope it is a world beyond our wildest dreams.

I know loss is part of life, but somehow knowing it doesn’t make it easier. The pain is there waiting. It is a faithful companion. It is a full body experience. The tears. The pit in my stomach. The knot in my throat. The mind focused on the memories and the absence of those I will get to make with her in the future. I’m gambling with the universe as I’m flying to try and make it in time to say goodbye. I’m struggling to accept the lack of control I have over this situation. I am trying to will her to hold on longer as if I have that power. Because it is easier for me to believe that in some version of reality I do. That if I want to say goodbye to all those I love, I will get to through sheer willpower.

Day to day life allows us the luxury of pushing the inevitable loss into the back of our minds. It allows us the luxury of pretending that we have more time than we do. To put off the pain. The tailspin of emotions I’m currently experiencing. I told myself I didn’t have to feel this pain yet. I thought I had at least another month. No news is good news. I suppose this is self-preservation or else life would be too much to bear. Or maybe it is a gift if we allow ourselves to see it as one. Maybe I’m not so much pretending as I am continuing to live in the finite time I do have. If all we did was use our time to prepare for the end, we simply wouldn’t be living at all. Honestly, I probably would stop getting out of bed.

It is during these times of loss that I reflect on my own life. Where I’ve been. Where I am now. Where I am going. What it is I want. I don’t think I have any idea where I am going and frankly, I’m not sure I want to. We are not very good at predicting the future. Maybe it is beyond our ability as humans. We just have to focus on the day we have. To lay one brick at a time and hope it turns into a path.

I think I know what I want though. I want a life full of raw emotion. All of them. The full range. The ones that make me laugh so hard I’m crying and those that make me cry so hard that I wonder if I’ll laugh again. Perhaps that is a weird thing to hope for, but to me, it will mean I’ve lived a complete life. A free life. A life uninhibited. A heartbreaking, soul-healing, amazing, awful, ordinary life as described in the poem that I began this blog with.

As you know, I’ve already mastered how to numb myself. And I want to continue to unlearn that skill. To slow down and embrace whatever is coming up for me. The sadness. The anger. The frustration. The shame. The joy.

So right now, I am embracing sadness. The gut-wrenching kind. And I’m so fucking grateful, because it means I’m alive. And if I’m lucky enough I’ll live 87 beautiful years like my grandma. I’m feisty like her so I think my odds are good.

Thank you for 36 years of memories, Grandma.

***She passed about 10 minutes before I landed, shortly after I finished writing this. Rest in Peace, Grandma. I miss you already.***

Cue ‘Time Will Tell’ by Gregory Alan Isakov