We have all gone through loss, heartbreak, or seeing someone we love suffer. At what point is it time to accept what has happened or is happening and begin the grieving process? Throughout personal experience with all the above, it has been a journey to figure it out. This particular instance has become one of the most difficult ones to get through.
I am currently sitting at Markey Cancer Center watching my Mamaw have her vitals checked by a nurse tech. Seeing someone you love go in and out of the hospital for months on end is hard, no matter the circumstance. My family and I have been transporting my last living grandparent back and forth between her small town of residence and one of Kentucky's major cities. You can get caught up in the technicalities and small nuisances of how much of a hassle driving an hour, four times a day can become, and forget how to go through the grieving process of watching someone die.
Again, I ask, at what point do you allow yourself to let go and grieve? Is it immediately after finding out that someone is terminal, or some point throughout the care of the person, or is it ultimately after they have passed away? With this question in mind I have begun my own journey of searching for the right time to be sad about the situation. Without becoming self centered about a situation that does not affect you in the same way as it directly affects the one who is living through a terminal illness, you have to allow yourself to process things. Though she is the one who is laying in a hospital bed with numerous cancers, I am still struggling with it myself.
My grandmother is someone who I have always seen as some kind of royalty. An invincible woman who has faced numerous trials, other people's battle and hardships, and somehow made it out happy, whole, and stronger than before. She powered through losing grandchildren, her husband, and prior to my existence, a long hard road of raising five children on a very low salary. This is not a woman who is weak or one to give up.
I came to realize, in my time as a young adult, that she is not perfect but she is still a gorgeous soul who is now facing her own battle. After becoming disheartened by watching her suffer I began to make my visits farther apart than before. I didn't know how to allow myself to grieve for the loss of her health. It saddened me so much I couldn't bear seeing her in that stare. Though it feels extraordinarily selfish of me to just not come see her.
Not to become so negative, but after almost a year of watching this brave woman grow weaker by the day, I have shoved myself into the little cabinet of denial. I come see her at least every few days now, but it still breaks my heart. Letting go of the way she was and coming to terms with the grief and heartache of ever so slowly losing someone I love, with all of my being, is now my journey.
I do not want to let go. I want to hold on to all the golden memories of my Mamaw climbing fences to go fishing, and the sweet remembrance of baking lemon cakes in in the summer sun lit kitchen. Grief is not an easy emotion to handle, which is why it is so easy to push it away until it consume you. However, now I ask a different question... Why can't letting go and holding on go hand in hand?
