Do you ever have those moments, where one minute you're just thinking about something, anything, entirely random, and then somehow your train of thought takes you someplace, and suddenly you're sobbing hysterically, trying to keep down the noise so your roommate in the next room doesn't hear? I had one of those moments today. I felt compelled to write about it.
It started in the most random of places. All I was doing was thinking about job interviews. I do that sometimes - where I imagine questions that I may get asked, and how I would response. I was thinking about my work ethic, about what if someone asked "where do you get your great work ethic?"
That thought make me jump straight to my dad. My mom worked hard too, she's a huge influence too. I guess I just can't say there are many other good quality traits my dad taught me (as oppsed to the many I got from my mom), so I attribute this one to him.
I also attribute to him my dislike of yard sales and flea markets, because for all of my childhood I remember weekends helping dad set up yard sales and going to the flea market or the large auction sites. I remember hating it, because who as a kid, and then a teenager, wants to spend their weekend working, helping dad, lifting heavy boxes and getting sweaty. I sure didn't. That's not to say there weren't fun times - cool random stuff I got to buy, usually cheap. And of course I got to eat whatever I wanted b/c mom wasn't around.
That's when I realized all this time as a kid is probably why, as an adult, I don't really get bothered as much by working long days or weekends (at least not nearly as bothered as so many others I know and don't know get bothered). I guess I am just used to it. And at least now I get paid real adult wages, and I can sit comfortably inside instead of getting sweaty outside.
But those thoughts are not what got the tears pouring.
[Just a warning/disclaimer - this may get you a little misty eyed. If it doesn't, either I'm a terrible writer, or you have no soul! I'm going to go with my gut that it's the latter, but you be the judge.]
I started to thinking about where my dad got his work ethic from, because for all his faults, he taught his kids the value of hard work. And that, he learned from his mom. And he's not the only one. I've heard plenty of times one of my relatives (maybe my dad, one of his 3 brothers, my mom, one of the many, MANY extended relations we had) expand upon just how hard my grandmother always worked.
Her life was far from easy - born in the south, starting a family young. Her and my grandfather moved to California with their first two sons (or was it after the 3?). I remember stories from her about working at the cannery - which is something hard to imagine now, as I think of cans being filled and closed by machines. And having to work other jobs too, more than one at a time, all while raising 4 boys. There are times when I think it was probably harder raising kids with a bad spouse, than on your own, because there is so much more pain when someone you love hurts you, and makes you life harder instead of helping to carry your burdens. Obviously I wasn't there, so I can't know how the times were all the time, but just remembering the terrible stories I've heard breaks my heart, to know anyone could be so mean to someone who was go loving and gave so much for her family.
Just now, going back over these thoughts, and fleshing them is making the tears worse. I have to wipe the tears from my eyes just to see that I've spelt some of these words correctly. Usually, I don't like to write about my feelings, but I couldn't help it. It felt wrong to keep this in, so cry it out and let it pass, without something substantial to know it happened. So, I'll continue.
Next, I began thinking about what it was like growing up, going to grandma's house. It was a small house, and not in great condition. But there was something about going to grandma's house that was like stepping into another world. I've never been to the South - I've barely made it past Colorado (within the US anyway), so all I knew about the place was from pictures and stories from my grandparents. But I always imagined it was like grandma's house - surrounded by orchards, people driving big trucks, animals out and about, and the houses much farther apart than where I lived in the suburbs. It's not like they lived far away (20-30 minutes maybe?), and it was definitely still California. But i guess being young, it always left an impression on me.
I remember grandma's garden. It wasn't like today, with all this trendy, organic crazed hype about having little gardens in your back yard. This was the real deal - little rows of vegetables growing as they wished, fresh made food, things pickled in jars looking authetic and rustic, not crafty and trendy.
At this time, I was already in tears - nostalgic for the old days, parts from my youth that are gone and lost forever. I began thinking about when grandma died. It was October, and it happened pretty suddenly. I am most thankful that I got to see her before she went, but remebering that last moment is still so sad. We were just talking, about anything. It was just nice to chat. And then she something we should do at Thanksgiving. As I told her that was something I wanted to do, inside it was all I could do to keep from falling apart. There would be no Thanksgiving, there wouldn't even be a next week - not here anyway, not with us. But I couldn't let this last moment to affected by that knowledge, so I held it in.
I feel like I held a lot of it in. The funeral was on the Tuesday following that last moment, and that following Saturday, and the Saturday after that, I had exams - important ones for my last year for grad school. I don't think at that time I had the room for mourning. It's like, if I really let it in, really felt it, then everything would fall apart and I wouldn't make it through. So, I just kept holding it in -
Which is why I think I still have these occasional moments - moments when out of nowhere, that extreme feeling of loss becomes overwhelming. With any loss, it fades with time, because you except it, you really feel it before, so later it just becomes this memory that you loved someone, and they loved you, and that love still exists.
I think about love and loss, and how people say when you loss someone, it's like a hole in your heart. Maybe sometimes that's true. Maybe if the loss is painful in a hurtful way, like the person was bad or did something terrible to maim your heart. But when you loose someone you love because life just takes them away, I don't think there's a hole. It's more of an impression.
Or maybe it's like replacing a framed photo where a person used to be - you can still see them, you can still feel that love, but it's just a one way conversation now. Not that when people leave they stop loving us (I choose to believe in an afterlife, however that happens) but instead we now feel that love coming from the place inside where we know they loved us, rather than getting the love from the source. And as much as that can hurt, and as much as that makes us cry, there's a beauty in that. I believe in feeling the beauty in the pain - knowing that something so wonderful exists that its loss can feel this strong. I never dislike feeling, even the bad things, because to feel at all is wonderful, and it means that I am living, and letting others into my life. And it's time that I learn to share that more.
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