Thank you all for the love and support about my stepfather’s death. My mom wrote a beautiful obituary that really captures his spirit and impact. It has been interesting to move through grief a second time in so short a span of months. The sadness about Ralph passing didn’t hit me much until I got home to Pittsburgh. Now, when it hits, it grabs the reins of the grief about my dad and brings that along for the ride. I can feel like I’m running around in my head and heart being sad in one corner, then running to another and being sad there, and then seeing another nook and cranny that holds deep grief. It’s the grief of current changes as well as the grief around my parents getting a divorce, even though it was the most amicable and supportive an experience as possible. It’s the complicated grief of mourning a connection with my stepfather that wasn’t ever as easy as I wished it could be and yet also comes with good memories. Death has me mourning moments that are long gone, as if mourning growing up and not being able to hold onto every second.
Sarah is at the very end of her school year, and I had hoped she would make it through the whole week without needing to be picked up early. We didn’t quite make it. I wonder if the grief about losing her Pop-Pop hit her more once I was home. I got home Wednesday afternoon, and Thursday was the day she needed to be picked up early. When she got in the car she started crying right away, telling me she missed Pop-Pop. She did make it through a full day on Friday, and tomorrow is her last day of her senior year. Once she gets dropped off Monday afternoon I expect she will add yet another layer of grief to the grief-soup she is swimming through because that will be her last official ride with her beloved bus driver. I know we will stay in touch and arrange for an occasional ride, but it won’t be the same as seeing him twice a day, and he has been one of her most favorite people in the world ever. But as they say, it is better to have loved a bus driver and stopped riding that bus than never to have loved a bus driver at all.
Last week I separated my updates because it just didn’t seem right to put a prom celebration in the same flow as announcing a death, and yet, I can’t continue to separate the elements of our lives. Alongside processing grief, we also had yet another prom. Proms are such a vibrant celebration of life and movement. Amy’s high school is small so it does a prom for all grades. Amy was on the prom committee and has been planning for months. The prom theme was supernatural, and her job was to create decorations for the mermaid table. She made drawings on paper, made pearls from Model Magic, and cut shapes out of cardboard that she painted to look like a mermaid tail, shells, pearls, and bubbles. Her bestie’s mom made tons of cupcakes for the event, and Amy and her bestie spent three hours decorating them! Amy went as a vampire, bringing to life a dress that used to fit me. She looked as amazing as you would expect, with bright red hair, a red sparkly dress, a black cloak, and red and black makeup that tied it all together. Her bestie was in layers of blue and looked equally amazing.
While Amy was at her prom, Sarah was watching Daniel Tiger, and Carl and I sat in another room to finish watching Come See Me in the Good Light. I highly recommend it, but know that it is heartbreaking and heart-filling in equal measure. It is about Andrea Gibson and their experience with terminal cancer. It is a love story about Andrea and their wife Megan, and it is a love story about life itself. It acted as a grief midwife for me, helping me have a really good hard cry. This coincided with Sarah deciding she was ready for bed now and wanted us to come to bed immediately. Carl calmly told her we would be up in fifteen minutes but not before. He assured her that she could handle that. She was very upset, screaming and throwing herself on the floor after kicking her slippers off so they flew high in the air. What struck me the most was that Carl wasn’t judging her or needing her to not be upset. Nor was he going to cater to her demands. As she moved through her upset, she and Carl talked about how she could imagine putting water on the fire of anger (eg. Anger from Inside Out). Sarah took her water bottle and at first went to pour water on her head, since that is wear Anger’s fire is alight. We suggested she drink it instead, and it did seem to help. She reached equilibrium, and watched a bit more of her show. Then she came in to find me crying hard. She brought me tissues and then sat on Carl’s lap, gently putting her hands on my head and waiting until my tears abated. Last night when I had more tears, both girls and Carl came to snuggle around me until I felt better. I’m lucky to be surrounded by so much love.
Wishing you the fun of anticipating a prom and the calm after an emotional storm.
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