I Miss Your Love

There is something, at least for me, that is so beautiful about death and even blood. I have watched many times as my blood breathes and sucks the container in trying to get its own oxygen before it finally decides to die. It is so nostalgic to be sitting their alive, and at the same time watching a part of yourself die. It is not only nostalgic but symbolic in so many ways.

For me when that slice goes through my flesh and the blood bubbles up and begins to drip onto the cloth below it symbolizes how dead I feel inside, it reminds me that I am still alive. “I hurt myself today to see if I still feel” – Johnny Cash. The pain I feel in the days following as I begin to heal is connected to me emotionally. It represents the emotional anguish I am feeling. Each cut, each scar, has a story, has a pain associated with it. When that blade hits my flesh everything deep within me is suddenly tactile, it is real, it can be bandaged it can be healed. If I could find a way to do that within myself instead of externally I would but I haven’t been able to. 

I look around this makeshift house and I often find myself staring up at the knotty pine ceilings. Counting every single nail and wondering how my grandma managed to do each one by hand while literally dying of lung cancer. Each of the nails has her energy. She held each one firmly and gripped it as she hammered it into place, one after another after another.

This house may be unfinished, it may be too small and it may be a cluttered mess, but every nail, every board, every piece of wood, every crack or break was placed here by the hands that held me when I cried, that slept with me when I was a child, that nursed me back to health when I was sick. Those same hands taught me how to iron, how to fold the dreaded bottom sheet of a bed. They nurtured me and taught me how to cook, to bake, to scrub cigarette smoke off of white cupboards and walls. Those hands encouraged my love for art, for birds, deer and nature. They taught me how to garden flowers, fruits and vegetables.

Those old worn hands that were far beyond their years brushed my hair and drew on my back and I did the same for her. They taught me that a weed can be beautiful as long as it has a flower and that sometimes even the biggest sunflower will get pecked by birds before you have a chance to retrieve the seeds. I learned to walk around my flower beds every day and yank what shouldn’t be there and become excited at the buds and new growth that occurred between now and the day before. 

Maybe best of all is that she taught me to embrace the gifts god had given me. She taught me that being empathic and psychic was okay. She taught me that ghosts were real and not to be feared. I saw my first UFO with her at around three in the morning. I am happy to say that the gifts I have were nurtured by someone like her, who had the strength that I will likely never possess, pieces of her live on through me in so many ways. She taught me how to love unconditionally no matter how many times someone screws up, and even if you can’t have that person in your life that the love doesn’t have to end because the friendship/relationship has.

I was raised to believe that you sleep when you’re tired even if you are having a siesta every day and if you’re not sleepy to use that time for yourself because you only have each moment and each minute once. You can never go back, you can never relive that moment again, except in memories and dreams. Much like the internet, what you put out there in the physical realm is irrevocable.  

Lastly, I was taught that it’s okay to be selfish regarding your own life. It’s okay to be sick and make the decision to refuse treatment. It is okay to die on your own terms without the influence of anyone else. It is not a sin to die and it is not a sin to prolong life for those who wish to stay. I was taught that embracing death as another chapter in life was exactly what death is. It doesn’t mean you no longer exist. It means you no longer exist within the vessel in which you were sent. I was taught that when someone on their death bed tells you they are going to haunt you that they likely mean it and that no matter how sad the people standing around are regarding your death that it is a human reaction and an action of selfishness.

Saying goodbye isn’t easy, so say so long because you will see one another in your dreams, you will feel one another at important events. People don’t live on because they were written about, they live on because they touched a persons’ heart in such an insurmountable way that their stories continue to be told, their life continues to be analyzed and in each fleeting moment you think about that person and can honestly say “grandma would of bought this” without feeling a sense of dread or loss or anger.

I have come to realize over the years that the best way to take back your life is to control your death. To die on your terms with your convictions and to not be swayed by those who would rather have you suffer every moment in pain just so they could have you for one more day or create one more memory. There comes a time when we each must choose to follow our own hearts and create our own life paths, even if that means toes get stepped on along the way.

Do I miss her?

Yes, she was like a mother to me but I wouldn’t wish her back, not to the pain and suffering that she was living with every day and trying to hide so as to stay strong. If I could have everyone back healthy both mentally and physically I would take it but then I realize that when I die I will be whole for the first time since the moment of my creation. Our souls will meet up again in the heavens and maybe even on earth.

I would rather be whole than shattered the way I have been for more than half of my life.

Yes, I would rather be whole.