Grieving the loss of someone who is alive...IT HAPPENS!

Grief is a Big Word

Part One…

Grief is a big word. Grief is pain.  There is grief when someone dies, there is grief when someone loses a person they love who is alive.  It exists, it’s real.  My situation is the loss of children who do not want me in their lives.  I have no clue as to why, what happened, what I did or what I didn’t do.  Not only losing my children, but we (my husband and I) also lost our grandchildren, children who we were very close to and had amazing relationships.  This happened in a time span of 15 minutes…everything is fine to “you are not coming here.”  We have wondered, with broken hearts, what in the world was so bad that they took us out like last week’s garbage.  We are not garbage and nothing we have ever done makes us garbage.  We have felt unnecessary, unwanted, unloved, insignificant and unworthy.  However, we finally found a miniscule drop of peace most days.  It has taken more than 5 years, but we know we are important, loved, wanted, worthy and necessary if only to eachother.  It went from “can’t wait” to “stop.”  We were on our way to have dinner with the grandchildren and their parents when got a phone call to not come.  It didn’t turn out to be just that one visit, it turned out to be a life changing moment and choice my daughter made.  

Several months after, we stopped at my mother’s house and they were there.  My husband asked if I was sure I wanted to stop?  I was sure even though I knew it would make the pain as fresh as day one.  My granddaughter ran to us and said, “shhh.  My mama said you are a very, very bad person and said I can’t call you Papi and Gammy any more.  Shhh.  I will get in bad trouble if mama sees me talking to you.”  I literally died at that moment.  At this time, I was told I was not wanted, to stay away, to never contact them, and, especially, the grandchildren.”  The one that blew us away was, “you aren’t allowed to take them to the restroom either.”  Wow, did my child just say she didn’t trust us to take them to the restroom when we had taken care of them on several occasions and stayed almost every weekend visiting.  I could not have hurt any more than I did at that moment and several other number of things throughout the last 5 years…I don’t even know what my grandchildren look like.  My grief is the loss of my  estranged children, people who I gave birth to and the people who I gave live to tells me they no longer want or care to see or be around me.  It’s really hard to maneuver through each day, hearing over and over what my grandchild told me.

Months later, having it no other way, I bought the grandchildren Christmas presents and, like most grandparents, I went overboard, which is beside the point.  I got word to my daughter that I was leaving the gifts at the front door.  The message that came back to me was, “if you leave those presents at my house, I will set them in the middle of the road.”  Those gifts were given to a charity collecting toys for Christmas.

I often wonder how this has impacted the oldest grandchild.  There were pictures of us in her house and suddenly they are taken down.  We are there like clockwork and suddenly we are gone.  My grandchildren will never think differently than what their mother told them.  She planted a seed with roots that will last my life time. 

Granny

I have been led to write about several things, but what comes to mind this morning is my Granny Edna.  Granny Edna was born in a place called "Sweet Holler."  She was born in 1908.  The first time my grandfather saw her, he said he was going to marry that girl and when she was 15, he did just that.  My mother is one of the five children they had.  Norman, the eldest, did not live but a year or two when he died.  Granny Edna was a quiet, reserved person--almost stoic.  She was not very affectionate, I never saw her shed a tear, but we all knew she loved us in one way or another.
Granny was known for her flower gardens, finger work, and cooking...especially biscuits.  She made biscuits every morning to feed her children breakfast.  All the neighborhood kids (30s& 40s) caught the bus at Granny's house and she had one particular nephew who would come in the house every morning and take her biscuits out of the warming oven.  She never said a word, but I think if she'd had her way, she'd cut him off at the pass.  She always made the communion bread for the yearly foot washings at church.  One year we got into her bread and ate it before communion.  We were in trouble, but she didn't say a word, just started a new batch.
My Grandfather died in 1964, a year before I came along.  My Granny Edna had never spent a night alone in her life, so mom, dad, sister or I would pick her up from her house and bring her home with us for the night and we would take her back to her house early every morning and we did  this (30+ years) until she became bedridden.  The day came when she never went back home, but was at our house, mama taking care of her every need.
Granny Edna could see our house from her kitchen window, so every time we had company, she would call to see who was at our house...without fail.  One of the pitfalls of living in a family community.  She would spend most of her day on the phone gossiping about this and that.  When the conversation was over, she knew more about my every move than anyone.  I meandered a lot as a child, going to Uncle Arthur and Aunt Jane's every morning.  I'd then go visit cousin Dodge, play in the creek for a while before going to see Aunt Clyde and Aunt Pearl.  Most days I also stopped in to see Uncle Hurley and Aunt Mag, too.  Some days Shawn and I would see what we could possibly get away with.
Granny Edna was deaf in one ear and had been most of her all life. It would startle our company when we would talk to her at 100 decibels.  She could hear when there was something she didn't want to miss out on, but for the most parts, she was deaf.
Granny loved her romance novels.  Between doing beautiful finger work and growing her beautiful flowers, she read.  You could always tell when it got to a steamy part because she would cover her mouth and her eyes would get big as saucers.  We'd pick on her and she would end up giving us a laugh.  This was a big deal.  Now, you have to understand, this is a woman whose husband never saw her nude, yes, NEVER saw her nude.  She must have been the world's most reserved woman ever.
She was so old fashioned and set in her ways.  One afternoon, Sister's boyfriend came over to play ping pong and when they finished they sat on the ground under the kitchen window.  They shared a quick kiss and Granny just happened to see it.  She marches her butt outside and said she'd have no such behavior.  Mom didn't take too kindly to Granny's reaction, not to mention how it embarrassed Sister.  Granny never made the same mistake.  She never had an opinion or tried to correct us after that.  One night I was going to Tobacco Road and I was wearing a denim mini-skirt (our generation wore these things).  She looked at me and said, "I'd change my clothes if I had a mind to."  I looked at her and said, "well Granny, I'm not a mind to."
My Granny Edna was a good woman, while she may have seemed stoic, she was soft-hearted and good as gold.  She was a good neighbor and a good friend to her family and friends as well as so many others.  She would do anything for anyone.  The one thing my Granny did was to prepare all stillborn children or children that had died ready for burial.  This was in the thirties, forties, fifties.  Burials were handled much differently.  She would lovingly bathe and dress the babies and children, which gave great comfort to those who had lost a child.  No one wanted anyone else to bathe and dress their child for the last time.  How she did it I will never know.  I wonder what she was thinking and how many tears she must have cried.
In her life, she buried a son, husband, three daughters-in-law, four grandsons, a great-grandson and a great-great grandson. She also lost her mother at a young age.  There was some type of flu, like the worst ever, when Granny Edna was young.  Her mother needed something so one of the younger children was sent to the store to fetch it.  She was given strict rules about which houses to stay away from, the houses that had the sickness.  Granny's little sister got distracted and went into the home of a sick family to play with her friends. Granny's mother had a defective heart and the flu she contracted was more than her body could handle, she left 5 children, 4 of whom were very young. All of the children found homes among family, which was a blessing.
You had to know her to appreciate her and her ways.  There is unkown number of people she helped anonymously.  I simply cannot express what a good woman she was. Like I said earlier, she was not affectionate, but in her own way she made sure we knew she loved us if it was baking our favorite pie without having been asked, giving us a quilt, or praying for us.  I never took her for granted and she is sorely missed.