This is going to be another emotionally heavy post. My grandmother died last month. Now that there’s been a fair amount of time since her death, I feel more comfortable talking about it and some related things that are currently happening. This post will focus mostly on what has happened since the funeral.
The funeral itself went about as well as it could have. I stayed at my grandparents’ house the night before with some other family members to save myself from a long drive the morning of the funeral. Several other family members met there the next morning before we all headed over to the funeral home. Some of us got to view my grandmother’s body quite a while before the service started. Unlike at my grandfather’s funeral back in 2017, I shed only a few tears during the service; I must have cried out enough before her funeral to feel ok that day. We then drove over to the cemetery for another brief graveside service and visited more with each other before parting ways.
Since the funeral is over, the biggest focus at this point is my grandparents’ house. They lived in that house for almost my whole life. Since they now have no more use for it, it’s being put up for sale soon. That house has been part of my life since the year after I was born and will soon be inaccessible to me. I feel deeply upset about that.
It’s the most peaceful house I’ve ever been in. The house sits on two acres of land in a rural area, so I pass by several other large plots of land with horses and cows whenever I drive there and back. There’s plenty of space between all the houses in the neighborhood, and it’s far enough away from a main road to get pretty quiet on most occasions. I love hanging out on the back porch swing, soaking up the silence, and watching the birds going about their day. Few other experiences are so relaxing to me. I will dearly miss that tradition, along with the house, all the wonderful memories it holds, and the family members who lived there for most of my life.
There have already been some big changes to that house. In addition to my grandparents no longer living there, some things have been given away, and lots of things have been rearranged. I’ve helped a bit with that, and I hope to do more of it in the near future. Still, this situation is upsetting for me for a few reasons. One of them is that it signifies that my time at that house is drawing to a close. The bigger reason has to do with external memories. Sometimes I’ll come across an item I haven’t seen or even thought about in ages. Whenever that happens, a flood of memories always follows, and I get transported back to experiences that had long ago stopped crossing my mind. That’s why I have a hard time parting with things from my past and my room is overrun with stuff. I fear that if I lose access to the objects that unlock precious memories, I’ll also lose access to the memories themselves. I hope that doesn’t happen with the loss of that house. I’m glad I’ve gotten to see the house a few times while it was mostly the same as I remember, in addition to getting some mementos over the last few visits.
This is similar to what I dealt with after my dog Sawyer’s death. Aside from the pain of his death, there is the lingering pain of knowing that for the rest of my Earthly life, Sawyer and I will get no more walks, naps together, cuddling, playing, saying good night and good morning, excited greetings after returning home, etc. Sometimes it still occurs to me that I’ll never get to make new memories with Sawyer or make up for lost time, and that’s always a painful punch in the gut. That’s after eleven years together. I have no idea how painful it will be when the house that has been in my life for over thirty years goes away. It already hurts to know that there’ll soon be no more holiday gatherings, birthday celebrations, or visits with my grandparents or anybody else out there.
I don’t yet who will become the new owner of that house. I hope whoever it is will love and cherish it, keep the general layout similar to how it is now, preserve the beautiful wood floors and other lovely features, and make many wonderful memories during their time living there. I’d hate for it to get torn down, radically changed, or converted into a commercial building (though since it’s in a small, rural neighborhood with lots of elderly people living nearby, I think it’s safe from at least two of those possibilities). I’ve stayed overnight there twice recently, once this month and once last month. Both times, I cried when I was alone late at night. Going there makes the situation more real brings up the painful emotions more easily than when I’m just thinking about it elsewhere. I thought that last month’s visit would be my last time getting to spend the night there or even see the place while it’s still in the family. Since I got to do both of those again this month, I now have no idea how many more such opportunities I’ll get. As long as I’m able, I’ll continue soaking up experiences, taking pictures and videos, getting mementos, and making new memories at that house while I still can. Soon enough, I’ll not be able to make any new memories there and will be left with only the memories I’ve already made. The close of every precious chapter of my life always hurts. It’s so hard to keep going while missing people, places, and things that go away. I hope that the close of this chapter will be as gentle on me as it can be.