Today I lost one of the most influential people in my life. My grandmother, Mary Jane Fauls, succumbed to demands of a long and fruitful life after 86 — nearly 87 — full years.
I will miss our long talks, our pointed and lovingly direct banter, but most of all I will miss the woman who helped to raise me. She cared for me as a child, provided loving and firm support to my mother as she braved the world as a single mother, kept tabs on me as I drifted away from family ties as a rebellious teenager and made a point to call me several times a week once I became a mother.
She was a trusted confidant, a devoted mother and grandmother, and she will be absolutely missed every single day.
The joy of life is the people within it. The cruelty of life is losing them and learning to live without them. Life's cruelty tore a hole in my heart 20 years ago, and it just got bigger. It is painful, physically and emotionally to lose someone so close. But I will go on. Not in a dramatic sense — in a literal one. My grandmother played a key role in showing me how to survive my mother's death. "We are survivors," she said. And she showed me how to survive through a living example. And now I must do it again.
She adored her great-grandson, Benjamin, and was able to attend his first birthday party just three weeks ago. "I never thought I'd live to see it," she said, when I announced my pregnancy in April 2011. And now I am so grateful she was able to meet him, watch him sit up and crawl, then walk and finally, eat cake and ice cream for the first time. To see a child's face when you show him his first birthday candle — I am honored she was there to witness it.
I will never fully heal from this loss. It will never be okay that I can't call her anymore for advice or ask her a question about my mother or just tell her a funny story about the baby. It will never be okay that she is gone.
But I will go on, for her. I will be the best mother I can be. I will treasure my children and the rest of my family, as she would want me to do. I will try to find a way to make her proud.
And I look forward to the day I will see her and my mother again.
My heart is breaking for you, my friend. At least you know that right now, she's praising God in Heaven, and there is no better place to be than that. Still hard to be without her, though. You know you better let me know if I can do anything, right? RIGHT?
ReplyDeleteOkay, good. I love you!