My grandmother passed away this year. Not many people know I lost her. I didn’t post about it on social media or talk about it much, mostly because I internalize my sadness.
It’s hard for me to explain how much I love and miss her.
Grief is a bitch. And since this book is all about overcoming grief, I thought it fit to dedicate it to my Gommy. (That’s what I call my grandmother, but that’s a story for another day.)
My mother and I lived with her and my Papa most of my young childhood and I have great memories of her standing in front of a kitchen stove, cooking grits and eggs and bacon all while in a pair of heels, pantyhose, pencil skirt, and blouse. Rouged cheeks, red lipstick, and hair perfectly quaffed.
She’d make us breakfast every morning before school before heading to her job as a legal secretary where she worked her ass off all day to come home and then make dinner for all of us ingrates.
She was always put together, looked beautiful, and was one of the smartest women I knew. (And the faster typer, too. As she typed up every paper I wrote through school.)
We’d have interesting conversations at the dinner table where we always ate together. Even as I grew older and she grew old, I’d bring my own kids to her home and we’d still have those interesting conversations around her table.
I could tell her anything. Anything in the world and she never got mad at me. She was one of my best friends.
She was a big romance reader and always passed her books on to me when she was done with them.
She read all of my books and was very proud of me.
In the end, she read them over and over because she couldn’t remember reading them in the first place.
So, this one is for you, Gommy. I hope they have romance books up in heaven, or I don’t wanna go. And I hope that you’re up there reading this one and enjoying it enough that you want to read it all over again, but not because you can’t remember it. But because you love it so much. I love you.
*This book contains deeply emotional content centering around the loss of a loved one. Be well, friends.
I wasn’t a crier. Not in public, anyway. I was one of those stoic Southern women who hid their emotions behind forced smiles and fake pleasantries. It wasn’t something I took pride in. It was just how I was.
I took all my feelings and hid them away in the depths of my bathroom, deep in a tub of bubbles and truth. My face scrubbed clean of makeup and falsities. That was the only place I felt comfortable letting the tears flow. Sometimes, I’d even let loose a silent scream into a soaking wet washcloth if I’d had a real doozy of a day.
Yeah, I hid that shit real well. So, on that fateful early morning, when my life changed forever, I did what I did best. Stuffed that shit down deep. Where it belonged.
No, I didn’t cry at all when my doorbell rang at 1:00 a.m. even though I knew not a damn bit of good news came at that ungodly hour, especially if you were the wife of a soldier.
I didn’t cry when the two gentlemen there looked at me with desperate, sad, pitiful eyes and informed me my husband wouldn’t be coming home. Not alive, anyway.
I even managed to hold it in when one of their voices caught as he said my now deceased husband’s name.
I was screaming on the inside, though no one could hear me.
I somehow didn’t even cry the next morning when I called our small bit of family and friends and laid it all out to them.
Not one tear was shed when I sat down our ten-year-old daughter and explained to her that her daddy had gone to heaven to be with the angels. And that she’d never see him again in this lifetime. That she’d never get to say goodbye. That they’d never again do their secret handshake or binge-watch stupid Marvel movies together. I may have felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I held my shit together.
That was hard.
Really fucking hard.
I didn’t tear up at all while heaps and heaps of our neighbors and friends brought by food and their condolences. Not even while they stood on my porch and cried themselves sick over disposable containers of peach cobbler and greasy casseroles.
And I didn’t cry at all. Instead, I tried to check out, as I readied myself for the funeral, skipping my usual makeup routine and pulling on a black dress from the back of my closet that I’d always believed I’d be too damn lucky to have to wear.
Stupid, stupid me.
I sat stoically through the service, through the shots fired of Three Volley Salute, though my gut wrenched the entire time and I felt like I was going to vomit.
But I wasn’t immune to it all and I’ll even admit the playing of Taps almost did me in. And when they’d handed me and my sweet girl that flag, I felt like I was going to die right along with Andy.
Hell, I even thought about climbing right into that casket with him.
But I wouldn’t. For Parker. Only for her.
So, I straightened my back and lifted my chin, then sucked back the sudden urge to cry. I wouldn’t dare break down in front of all those people. I swallowed my tears and pushed through. Just like I’d done every time something had laid me low in my life. And I’d been laid low plenty. Although this one felt like a damn knockout.
And when I’d finally hugged what felt like a million people I hardly knew and shaken too many hands to count and everyone started filing to their vehicles, I’d thought I was for sure out of the woods.
I’d made it, I’d congratulated myself.
I could go home and hide in my bath and lose my mind. Fall apart. Curse God.
But I’d been stupid and naïve.
Because then it was just me and my Parker. Just us.
As we stood and watched them lower my husband’s shiny casket into the ground, I all of a sudden wondered if all those people were the only thing keeping me together. Because, at that moment, I felt like I wanted to shatter into a million pieces.
I wanted to fly apart and I didn’t want anyone to try and put me together again. Pieces of me strewn all over the same place my husband would be for the rest of eternity.
Instead, I clenched my teeth until my jaw ached as much as my broken heart. Poor Parker slipped her smaller hand into mine and squeezed. I clenched my eyes closed tight, wishing I’d wake up from this nightmare.
“It’s so pretty, Momma.” I heard her say, but I was too lost in my grief and despair to understand her meaning.
Confused, I opened my eyes and leaned down closer to her. I let go of her hand to wrap my arm around her shoulders. “What, baby? What’s pretty?”
She turned to me with tears shining in her pale blue eyes, Andy’s eyes, before turning back to the casket now covered in dirt. “Daddy’s treasure box,” she said, pointing at the casket.
It took me a brief second to understand what she meant before my breath caught and my knees quaked beneath my too slender form.
Daddy’s treasure box.
That was exactly what it was, wasn’t it?
My quivering knees gave out and I hit them hard with an agonizing sob.
“Oh, God,” I cried out, the crushing weight of my grief crippling me.
How was I expected to carry this grief around? It was so unbearably heavy.
Fresh tears spilled over my cheeks.
Daddy’s treasure box.
It was the sweetest, saddest moment of my life.
Small arms came around me and brutal cries wracked my body. She was right. My sweet baby was right.