My grandma has been gone a week. A whole week and I still don’t really believe it.
Yesterday we buried her ashes. And when I say we buried her, I really mean WE actually buried her. I didn’t know it was actually possible to do it ourselves but I guess when there isn’t an actual body they let you do it however you want. We even dug the hole. Well Patrick, my little brother Frank, and my cousins hubby dug it. And my grandma would have LOVED putting them to work one last time! And we must have looked pretty weird digging a hole in the cemetery next to my aunt right by the highway. By headlights because the Texas heat it just too much.
The guys dug the perfect hole while I chased Jace and talked with my cousins that I haven’t really talked with in years. We made crude jokes and talked about babies. My cousin is due with a baby girl next month.
Last night after the funeral service and when it started cooling off my family went out to say our goodbyes. We all sat around and drank a Coke. Jace even got his first taste of soda which he really seemed to enjoy. All my grandma wanted when she was ICU was a dang coke and they just wouldn’t give it to her. We put some of her ashes in a coke bottle said a few words then started throwing dirt in. That was the awkward part. I don’t think anyone actually wanted to do it. And it’s probably the part that would be easier to have so wine there that does it for you.
My grandma was a strong women that raised 4 girls on her own. Two who she had herself and after she lost one of her beautiful daughters she raised her two beautiful girls. She loved weed, coke-cola, and her family. I will always remember that she wore a leather bra when we first moved to Texas, that she told the best princess stories during sleepovers, and that after buying us coloring books at the store we would get back out to her house in the country and unload the car in our undies because it was just to dang hot outside to do it with clothes on. And no one could see us anyway way out there.
I can see the loss on people’s face’s. I see the pain in my mom’s face. She has now lost her parents and her sister. I see it in my cousin’s faces. They have now lost the person that raised them after their parents died. I saw it on the random people who came by to offer hugs after the funeral was over.
But I see life too. I see life in Jace’s eyes when he is chasing dogs, cats, and balls. I see him smiling and waving at everyone around and it’s contagious. Babies let us see the life. And it’s amazing. I see the life growing in my cousin’s belly. I can feel the momma worries coming from her already.
The life is what gets us past the loss in this world. And sometimes we just have to close our eyes and hold into it.
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