When Grief Remains

Last week was the fifth anniversary of my grandmother’s death and this year it hit me in a different way. I started physical therapy a few weeks ago and maybe it’s because the therapist is connecting me with my body in long-forgotten ways. In our sessions, I notice what I’m holding and how I brace myself, perpetually, as my natural state of “rest,” though there’s nothing restful about the tension living in my body.

In a session last week, on the date of the anniversary, I met my body with frustration and the tears began to flow; they didn’t stop flowing until the next afternoon. It began as frustration about the state of my body, and what my body is not able to do currently, the reality that I try to avoid most of the time. The tears seemed to have no off-switch.  

This vulnerable state reminded me of the losses we live with. Of the holes that exist in our souls and how they never get filled up. Instead our days morph around the chasm, with efforts to not fall in. These are the losses we live with and try to not be consumed by, though we often find ourselves blindsided by a memory and the grief rushes back in.

So today, I’d like to tell you about my grandmother. She was born in Philadelphia in 1930, a day before Halloween. She was an only child, born to German parents after my great-grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1925.

My grandmother was the source of unconditional love in my childhood. I felt loved by her without performing, with a kind of attunement and understanding that was missing from my parents.

Being with her felt magical. We never lived in close proximity but when we were together, it was as if no time had passed; we always picked up right where we left off. Every gift she gave me was thoughtful and just the “right” present. When I was seven, she gave me my first camera and I spent the spring posing our litter of kittens and honing my photography skills. I visited in the summer, inventing recipes in her kitchen and painting rocks in her yard. She took me to Renaissance festivals and theme parks and craft fairs. We exchanged letters - she was my first pen pal. She sent me books when she finished them and saved her Reader’s Digest copies for when I visited.

Though I never remember what she cooked, I do remember meals at seafood restaurants and Chinese buffets, her favorites. She loved to travel and her letters were fulled with photos from recent trips - Hawaii, Bahamas, Alaska. I can see the thread of my current passions and how they connect back to her influence in my life.

She was always forgetful, leaving items behind and misplacing her glasses. We chalked it up to “forgetfulness” and maybe it was. But when other changes began to happen, then the forgetfulness seemed more problematic.

When I graduated with my master’s degree in 2005, she flew out for the ceremony but felt a bit detached. Looking at the photos from that day you can see the glassiness in her eyes, the first visible change. The whispers of vacancy taking hold. Then came the emotional changes, the outbursts of intense emotions that were uncharacteristic for her.

By the time I was married in 2008, she was gone. While she was there for the wedding and her brain kept following social cues, acting as if nothing had changed, beneath the surface she was not connecting to me or the wedding of her only granddaughter. She was distant, wearing her everyday clothes and I was too busy and distracted by wedding events for it to fully register.

Nine months later when the Christmas gifts arrived from her, the box was filled with random items from her kitchen. This was my first up-close experience with dementia.

She would continue to decline as people with dementia do, and it was only in the last years that we named the condition. She died in 2021, after living with the disease that slowly took her from us in bits and pieces over two decades. Some call it the “long good-bye.” My experience felt more violent and traumatic. A better name may be “the disease that tears you apart” type of goodbye. Because the truth is that I never did get to say goodbye.

There were so many things I would have liked to tell her. So many conversations we never had. So many moments never shared. She didn’t get to see my doctoral graduation or when I bought my first house.

There are unanswered questions I have for her - What was it like living through WWII. Questions about my great-grandfather, about heirlooms brought from Germany, about distant relatives unidentified in photos. I’d like to know how she managed being a young widow and raising a daughter alone in the 60’s. About working at the department store and making her own income. I would like to know her favorite color and her most loved author.

When she died, all the pieces of her disappeared also, and what remains are the memories of her that I hold. In the land of the living, memories don’t feel like enough. I want more! More of her. More time. More chances. I want another hug. I want her arms wrapped around my waist and the tap she would give me as she would say “You’ve grown up to be a beautiful girl.”

I want to send her my most loved books and talk about our favorite writers together. I want to tell her about the German citizenship I have applied for. I want her to know my husband and to tell her about our travel adventures.

I lost so much time with her, most of my adult years, time that cannot be reclaimed. There is an ache in the space she occupied, a deep longing for what we lost and what we never had. What are we supposed to do with the ache?

And so I sit here with my heart open and I wonder about this thing called grief. What are we supposed to do with it? What do we do when the ache feels as strong as the day that we lost them? What do we do when the grief blindsides us five years later? When it rises up and overtakes us? When there is nowhere to go and nothing to do?

You would think that I would have some answers. That my years of training and practice as a psychologist would provide me with a handy list of ways to ease the mourning. I can explain grief in psychological terms, in neuroscience informed ways, even in spiritual terms. But none of that matters when the ache rises up.

What I do know, maybe all I know, is how to move gently. How to do one thing today and when that’s complete, another thing afterwards. How to be soft and tender with this ache. How to hold the memories gently and allow the reminiscence. How to take one step today and then another step tomorrow.  

Pauline, my physical therapist said, “Let yourself feel the feeling. Take a moment and let it be here.” And so let us take a moment. Let the feeling be here. Let ourselves feel it, without pushing it away. Let the tears flow without rushing them. Today I will remember all that I loved about my grandmother and I will tenderly hold the ache for all that we lost and for what we never had.