Thiago Lopes
Life is all about the details. We worry about the hours we are caught in traffic, the moments we waste on chit chat, the time it takes to do chores, and so forth. All of these necessary evils take time from the true details that we need to concentrate on. All these things help determine bigger and larger things and all effect the quality of life we have.
Details. Details are what differentiates us from being normal to extraordinary.
Fashion-the perfect accessory can make a normal, bland outfit pop. That gucci bag can make any outfit gleam. Perhaps the perfect pearl neclace is the item that will make that black t-shirt go from casual to night out on the town. The highest, flashiest pair of heels can make those jeans become normal to fashionable.
Death is normal and so is birth. However, no one ever thinks, “hey, this is normal.” Grief, by all definition is not normal. We all think it is. But it never is. We go through the god-knows-how-many stages of grief, and it changes us. We never say, this is normal. Or maybe we do…to make ourselves feel better. But in no way does it ever impact our lives in the same way, nor does it change our lives in the same way. When I lost my grandmother to Cancer, my life changed in a series of ways that I can not begin to explain to you, the reader. When I was driving along the highway and nearly lost control of the car multiple times (this winter) in inclement weather, it changed me. There was a moment. Just one that was the eureka I needed to change my life.
So, there it was…the moment when I realized a few things. One, that I was thirty and I was not married nor had a child to call my own. Upside is that I was in a relationship with a man that I loved dearly and never thought that I would find my soul-mate but believed that I had and still have. That I had a job that I believed that I liked however, secretly despised. That if tomorrow was to be my dying day, I do not think that I could look back and look at it with pride knowing that I gave it the best I had.
The day of my grandmother’s funeral, I recognized a few very important truths. I loved her very much and so did the rest of my family despite that we did not know very much about her. She was a very private woman with her feelings. She liked to concentrate on family and with their day to day business and the small details. There we all stood, grieving. We all grieved, each in our own way, almost to not conflict with the other’s individuality. And for me, I grieved with tears shamefully because I could not rejoice for her passing to her next life. I wanted her here with me to rejoice in my life and my family’s life as she had always done. She had always lived selflessly while I had lived selfishly in the light of her grace. To this day, I wonder if she was my fashion accessory, my legacy, my pearls. I suppose if one was to learn something from grief is that the shadows are cold and dark. That independence can be so lonely when not shared with another and that family is warm and bright even during the stormy times because the storm always passes. That somewhere along the line, I lost how to live being one. Maybe it was that moment that I realized that my Grandmother’s independence was not something to strive for. I forgot how to be independent because independence is not so great. We all die alone. But I would rather die alone with my loved ones surrounding me to hold me as I pass from this life to another. I fear not death, but standing in solitude.
