When a loved one dies, friends and family pull together to get through the emotional pains of the event.
My precious, loving grandmother died over two months ago. Since then, things have not been the same. And not in a we-pulled-together way.
Sometimes, it fees like I’m just watching the nurse nod to us that it’s over. The pain is just that fresh and new at times. Since I didn’t see Grandma too often, there are times when I catch myself thinking about her as if she’s still alive; then I have to remember, all over again, her downward spiral, funeral, and my own mother’s continuing pain. It’s gut-wrenching, still.
Anyway, when Grandma died, we had a few days of togetherness as a family. Support from friends. Love from our communities. It was wonderful. Well, considering the circumstances.
Then family issues began to peak their terrible heads way too soon. Forgetting that Grandpa still lives, siblings began to have a power struggle. This is terribly wrong and uncalled for. It left at least one sibling feeling isolated, uncared for, insecure, and desperate for her mother back. Finding a new identity as a daughter with a deceased mother is difficult enough without these asinine events.
I hate this. With passion.
And I can’t fix it.
And that is driving me bonkers. Driving the tears right out of me. Leaving me feeling helpless and inadequate. I’m just a granddaughter, after all.
It’s not fair. Death’s not far, but aside from that, the senseless reactions that have taken place since my grandmother’s death–not fair at all. Many emotions are evoked within me to an extreme measure: anger, sadness, disappointment, passive aggressiveness, frustration, emptiness, inadequacy, … hope–or, perhaps, wishful thinking.
More than my emotions, though, I think about that daughter who now feels so very alone and seems to cling to that as her new identity. I want to fix it. I want to pull her out of her dark cave and help her; my attempts seem feeble and in the mean time my very raw emotions further intensify.
And no one seems to be pulling together.