Grandma

My grandma died 10 years ago.  I've mentioned this before.  I have probably also mentioned that I didn't grieve.  In my family, I was the caretaker...I took care of everyone else, and was proud of my ability to be stoic in the face of tragedy.  At the time, I didn't realize that I'd eventually grieve whether I wanted to or not, and that it would probably come upon me in inopportune moments or in inappropriate ways, coming out as anger at my loved ones, or bawling fits at work.  I just had a "grandma moment"...but this one happened to be a gentle one...the most gentle one I've had in a LONG time, in fact.  I started to post on facebook, but it just kept going and going, and I felt it deserved a blog post.

What an odd thought I just had: "I think I'll go visit my grandma soon." I used to be able to just take off and go see her whenever I wanted, and it wasn't entirely odd for me to just drop by on my way somewhere. I miss her in an odd sort of way...the way the sun felt on my face in her yard, the way my whole being just dropped all the weight of "life" and relaxed into "grandma's space", the way I could just not think about anything as long as I was there. My soul misses grandma time, my skin misses grandma's sun, wind, air, water...all those things (though they were the same everywhere) were different at grandma's house. Everything felt different there. The air sang with gentle, loving, warm contentedness. My heart was at home in grandma's presence.

A side note before I finish that line of thinking:  I may have mentioned also that I'm the black sheep of my family.  My sister is exactly like my mom, personality-wise, and she is the oldest (which somehow translates to most responsible)...my brother is the only boy and the baby.  So, they both have a solid, welcome place in the family.  I, however, am a lesbian, a Pagan, I'm not easily pushed into believing things that don't make sense, I despise discrimination...and all of these things make me not fit in.  My mom recently confirmed that I have no place in my family and disowned me permanently.  I have felt often in my life that I don't truly belong anywhere...I certainly don't belong with my family.  The people who created me don't want me.  And THEY are MY people...I came directly from them, I wouldn't be here if it weren't for them...if I were to belong anywhere, it would be with them.  I recounted in another blog how I discovered that I do have a place where I belong, but it is not a place on this Earth...the one place I know I truly belong is by my Love's side.  But she will never be MY people, my blood, my family.  My soul chose hers, and that is wonderful.  But family should love each other unconditionally simply because they are family, and mine does not.  

 Ok, back on track: I realized while processing through this feeling of missing my grandma that SHE was the one person on Earth that I truly belonged with, who I had a warm, loving, peaceful connection with that was born of more primal stuff than choice.  I share DNA with her, she connects me to my ancestors, my people, my heritage, back to the beginning of time, the way my parents and my other grandparents do...but she was the ONLY person I am a direct descendent of who truly loved me unconditionally.  With her death, I lost the one place on Earth that I truly belonged.

 That sense of peace, the simpler quality of the sun, the bare essence of the air, the Earthy presence of the water in my grandma's presence...that state of being between the worlds when I was with her, existed because the rules of the world did not share that space.  My grandma loved and accepted me unconditionally, simply because I was created from the stuff that came from her.  I am her daughter's daughter, and that is all there is, that is all that mattered to her.  She didn't care one whit if I held the same beliefs as her, if I discriminated against the people she discriminated against, if I loved the same gender she loved, if I followed society's rules, if I embarrassed her...when in my grandma's presence, the ONLY thing that mattered was the blood we shared, the primal, indivisible cord that connects generations of people who share DNA.  She did not care what I became, or what I was, or what defined me, or what I chose to do.  I was good enough simply by the fact of my existence.  That state of being was a cradle for my soul...and now has no place to thrive in this world, because my grandma took herself out of it.