I'm missing the hell out of my grandma today. I don't know why. She's been gone for thirteen years, but this morning her absence aches. I was fine. I poured my coffee and was getting ready to boil my eggs when the feeling hit me so hard my knees almost buckled. And now I'm writing this with tears pouring down my face, hiccups of sorrow so unbelievably fresh even I'm surprised.

Maybe it's because my husband is stressed at work, and I know if she were here I could call her - ask how she supported my grandpa when he was worried about something at the store he ran. And not only would she listen, her advice would be timely - and errorless. She would understand my concern for my husband and how it camps out in a part of my heart until he feels better.

Or maybe I miss her more today because I dropped the wee one off at camp and not wanting me to leave her, she cried until finally I had to dash away, hoping her teacher's arms would give my beautiful little girl comfort from her sadness ( however momentary it will be). If Gram were here, I could stop over to her house for tea or coffee or cocoa. I could cry in her arms because my baby cried when I left and know she would stroke my hair with her nimble fingers and hold me and make it better. Somehow she'd make it all better.

Maybe today is a tough day because on every house and terrace are stunning planters of vivid flowers, and seeing them reminds me of how much she would appreciate them - and of how she is gone and she can't see them. Or maybe she can from where she is, but we can't see them together, and oh how I want to see them together. Simply imagining her smile and sparkle is just not enough. I want to walk beside her, her arm tucked through mine and enjoy something as simplistic as beautiful flowers.

Maybe I'm just pissed that she is gone. That in this life we all lose too much, experience too much pain. That the lessons don't easily justify the losses. Though we may experience hell and struggle through to a new and different life, at times it may not be worth the despair that put us there. Or the sadness. Or the loneliness. Maybe I'm angry at God for making the world as such that I'd feel this way at all.

Or maybe I am just a bit lost today, and Gram was always a tether guiding me home. No matter where I went or with whom, I knew she would be there to fix me if I were broken, heal me if I were sick. And she isn't anymore. Hasn't been for a long time - but I still don't know what to do when these moments hit. When I'm floating in a space and don't know how to get back home. To her. To ground.

It isn't enough to imagine her as she was. It just isn't.

This entry is cross-posted at Notions of Identity.