I Miss Her

It’s been years – now – that she’s been gone.

And with the passing of time — years — it is easier missing her than it was the day before…most days. That does not mean to say that it is easy, missing her, just that it becomes different on a daily basis.

I don’t know what it is lately – the spectre of Mother’s Day on the horizon, being a mother myself, watching friends and co-workers lose their parents. But whatever it is, lately she’s been on my mind.

Quite honestly, at no other time is she more than just a tear-fall away than when I look at my daughter.

“She’d really think you were something, girlie,” I said to Elle the other afternoon as I changed her diaper. And Elle smiled and flapped her arms as though trying to fly (her latest trick) and my heart paused, wishing that she were here to meet Elle. Wishing she were here for me, to witness my life as a mother.

Oh, it makes me so sad that she’s not here for  me on my own journey of motherhood. It disappoints me that I missed out on appreciating – while she lived – how hard it must have been for her after becoming a mother herself. I wish from the depth of my heart that we would have commiserated over becoming a mother.

My Grandma died nearly six years ago. Six YEARS. It could be days – it could be hours, but it’s been YEARS.

In many ways, her death changed the course of my life.

I’ve been writing this post for a few days now — but tonight, as I rocked Elle to sleep, it hit me again.

I heard her voice ‘Hey Linds’ and I remembered the way her hands would move, the extremes she would go to (much like my mother these days) for anything big or small.

The past week has been particularly rough with her on my mind all the time. And Friday, as I watered the patches of dirt where I’m trying to grow grass in my yard, as I tended to the Stella D’Oro lillies planted in memory and because of her and my Grandpa, two yellow butterflies flew around my head.

Butterflies were our thing, my Grandma told me, before she died. They connected her and my Mom and me.

And the yellow — that was classic Grandma and Grandpa.

I felt more whole, somehow, with them close. I lead a full life, but there are pieces of me that have left with those I love, big road blocks in the spots where the passing of someone I love have altered my path in life.

I am comforted by the message of the yellow butterflies — or perhaps just their presence.

I’ve been looking for a word to describe my relationship with my Grandma — and I haven’t found it yet. In my head, it was kindred. But when I looked up the definition, it didn’t quite fit. We were meant-to-be’s maybe, in that we were meant to be in each other’s lives. I’m not sure. I’m still searching for a way to capture all that she was – and remains – to me.

All I know is that as I look into my girlie’s eyes, as I rock her to sleep, as I watch her learn moment-by-moment, I wish that they would have known one another. And I’m secretly glad that I still miss her this way – tears and all.