On love and loss and birthdays

Today is my grandmother’s birthday- my Mimi, and for the first time I am celebrating it on this earth without her. I don’t think I was really prepared for the hurt that comes with holidays and birthdays after you lose someone you love. There should really be a handbook for this kind of thing. When I lost her in November and my Papa just before her in April I also lost Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, and my birthday as I knew them, and now their birthdays just add on to the list of things that will never ever be the same.

I didn’t know that walking around campus I would still reach for my phone to call her because that’s what I always used to do when walking home from class. I even thought this morning, ‘better call and wish her a happy birthday’. Didn’t my brain get the memo?

I started writing this on Wednesday when I was struck with grief that felt like it was completely new. I didn’t know that this happens quite frequently, unprompted and unpredictably, after losing someone.

I sat in my bed that night eating Trader Joe’s knockoff cinnamon toast crunch feeling frustrated because I didn’t have time to be sad, I didn’t plan for it tonight. I thought I had until today to hold it off.

Why am I trying to compartmentalize my pain? What makes me think I can organize grief into my schedule?

In my community psychology class this week we talked about the difference between “natural pain” and “dirty pain”. Natural pain is your body and mind’s natural response to something hard, like a breakup or a family member dying. This kind of pain is normal and necessary for healing to occur. Dirty pain is the extra suffering we bring upon ourselves when we try to ignore the natural pain. We suppress it and don’t let ourselves feel it, and in not dealing with it it stays put.

We live in a society where you are expected to keep going no matter what you are going through. Pain is a natural response to bad things and by ignoring it, we are just prolonging and increasing it. This isn’t normal. Why are we acting like it is?

It isn’t normal that when your grandfather dies from covid at the beginning of the pandemic you are still expected to go to zoom class and hand in your research methods midterm on time. It isn’t normal to hear that 500,000 Americans have died since last March and feel numb. It isn’t normal that another Black man killed by police brutality hardly makes the news. It isn’t normal that all week I have anticipated being sad today and my biggest worry was that it will throw off my study schedule or make me bum out my friends when we go to a brewery tonight.

We have been trained to push through our pain, and all that does is make sure it never goes away.

Of course, I know that I will always miss my grandparents and that things will never again be what I used to define as “normal”. But it also isn’t okay that they passed away in April and November of 2020 and in March 2021 I don’t feel like I have fully had time to grieve yet.

It’s okay to be sad and that’s it. Not sad and productive, not sad and optimistic, just sad. I’m right here with you grieving two people I thought would would live forever, and it’s okay that it’s going to take a while.

Happy birthday, Mimi. I had an ice cream sundae just for you.

xx, Lauren