Grief is the most simultaneously full-bodied and dissociative experience that a person can live with. Much like love is.
It's not quite been two months since my last grandparent passed, so I shouldn't expect to feel the full weight of it yet, and still, I find my breath taken away when I remember that I have no grandparents left.
One of the first memories in my life is that of my brother's passing. I was two weeks away from turning 6 and my baby brother held my entire world in his tiny, chubby hand. My mother told me when I was 16 that as we drove away from the hospital I said "I didn't get to say goodbye". Given all the loss I've experienced since then, you'd think I'd have reconciled that idea in my own mind. It would appear not. How is one ever to conceive of the concept of death? I don't think we're supposed to. I think that death is as boundless and supernatural as love is.
I wish I had my grandmothers and grandfathers here. I wish I could have them with me as I move about the world, reach milestones, and experience the beauty of mundane days. I didn't get to tell them that I want to name my first daughter 'Frances' because I love the classic beauty in its simplicity. They never got to meet my boyfriend, whose love is as cherished in my soul as my love for the sun on my skin, and the breeze through my hair. They won't get to see me get married, and I won't get to see them grow old (dying in your 60s isn't fair. I don't have a more eloquent statement than that).
I keep replaying all of the questions in my mind that I should've known to ask.
"What song did you dance to at your wedding?"
"How do you take your coffee?"
"What's it like getting older?"
"Are you happy?"
I'm trying to remember to ask them to those around me while I still have them near. Sometimes my fear of them dying gets the better of me and all I can do is sit silent and try to remember their scent, or the feeling of their skin brushing mine.
I guess what I want to say is this:
Don't take people, especially your grandparents, for granted. Call them. Go visit them. Ask them the questions you don't think you need answers to, and write them down. Hell, record them in your voice notes app if you have to. Let them tell you their long stories, and memorize the details. God knows I wish I could.
Edvard Munch, Young Girl at the Beach (1896)