Sometimes, life just hurts.
It’s been a year since my paternal grandmother passed away. That means this was the first Christmas season without her, and boy was it rough. One morning I went to her grave site to visit for a bit and do an oracle deck reading for guidance, and held up alright. Later that evening though I picked up a fresh bag of Dunkin Donuts French Vanilla coffee (her favorite), nearly broke down in the middle of Giant, and ended up sobbing in my wife’s arms as soon as I got in the car.
As strange as this might sound, I’m glad that I can cry now. An interesting development of being on HRT for over a year now is I’m far more emotional than before, and for me that’s awesome. You see, part of my depression stemmed from the weird struggle that over the years following puberty, I slowly lost the ability to cry. I did still cry sometimes, but it took a lot and didn’t last long. Sometimes crying is just the best thing you can do to let out the sadness and pain, and not being able to got quite distressing. Apparently, I’m far from alone in that phenomenon.
Life can honestly be a bit of a mixed bag at times. Today my official certificate from the ARRT was mailed out, the culmination of 2yrs of clinical schooling, a registry exam, several more months of clinical procedures, and another registry exam. Not to mention it’s arriving in my correct name, thanks to the most complicated legal process I’ve ever gone through. The joy from that however is tempered by only being able to visit my grandmother’s grave site instead of telling her in person. My grandmother, a former nurse, was so happy when I first told her I was going into healthcare. While she was in hospice I stopped by to see her often, she loved listening to me tell her about everything I was learning and hear my stories from the hospital. I just wish she had been able to see the day when I officially became a technologist.
Some days you feel like a rockstar, other days you can’t even make it out of bed until after 14:30 and when you do the whole world just seems like one big numb blur.
One day a couple weeks ago when I was feeling particularly depressed, my amazing and thoughtful wife took one of my grandmother’s turquoise rings and made it into a necklace for me. I wear it to work a lot, but it feels like I carry more of her with me than just a ring. Her kind heart and caring nature were part of my inspiration to go into healthcare, and it’s like she passed a little extra bit of empathy and compassion onto me.
Sometimes there’s nothing we can do to stop how much life hurts, but that pain can also remind us that we are in fact living. The heartbreak and anguish at losing a loved one is a testament of how much they meant to you when they were still with you. The pain never goes away completely, but eventually the happy memories can start to push it away. The happiness you had when that person was still alive, and the happiness of the life you live on after they’ve passed can drown out the pain like tears in the rain. Grief is as much a part of life as joy, and often the former makes the latter all the more special. Even though my grandmother may not be with me anymore, her legacy and spirit lives on as an inspiration and comfort that will always be with me.