I think about and miss Elizabeth everyday. After Elizabeth passed my paternal grandfather also passed away.
My grandfather’s death so soon after Elizabeth was very hard to deal with. It was like I enmeshed the two deaths as one. So it hurt twice as much.
My grandfather is one of my only connections to my father, who also passed away. My father’s death, changed the course of my life forever but that’s another story.
This is the last picture I took with my grandfather, a little over a year ago when I visited in Puerto Rico. He suffered from Alzheimer’s, and everyone said he might not know who I was but he knew. He recognized me instantly and asked for my sister. He then went on to talk about his sons, asking for the ones that were here in the U.S.
I try to think about the lessons learned from these experiences.
About the preciousness of time, love, being happy in the moment, gratefulness and death…..that everything dies…
And certain books and movies or little things I hear really get to me. I try to find meaning in everything lately.
I was watching “Simon Birch” a movie loosely based on John Irving’s “A Prayer for Owen Meany”, some parts were changed and he brokered a deal that the movie could not have the same title.
I saw John Irving once, at a reading and he choose an excerpt from “A Prayer for Owen Meany”. I read the book immediately after and it was about faith, about a little boy who believed he was born the way he was for a reason.
Recently I was sitting in bed, the movie was on tv and I realize the movie was based on the John Irving book!
I’ve been watching this movie since I was much younger but watching it now, its different, I guess because I’m different.
I heard this quote from the narrator of the movie:
” When someone you love dies, you don’t lose them all at once, you lose them over time, in little pieces”
It made me stop breathing, I could so relate!
He goes on to say the thing he missed most about his mother was her scent and he hated the way it started to disappear.I thought yeah me too. I still try to find Elizabeth’s smell all over the house and I cry when I can’t find it. I think Snoopy our Jack Russell does too. He walks around the house sniffing the floors, the dog beds, her favorite spots.
But it also gave me faith! That everything happens for a reason, that there are no accidents, that there is a god and he has a plan, like Simon believes. Simon’s faith is wonderful, something to be envied.
That’s the power of writing and storytelling, it can give comfort in pain, make you laugh and cry.
I was on a puppy rescue site looking at rescue pups and I came across a paragraph that I’ve been reciting to myself since, I keep thinking this quote is meant to rescue me.
just like the Simon Birch quote, It touched me and I don’t have the author’s name to give credit to but I wish I did, because their words gave me comfort and made me think!
So thank you unknown author for this!
“Life is filled with trials and tribulations, its moments of victory and glory. Neither the ups nor the downs can be avoided no matter how desperately one might try. The best one can do is remember that everything is temporal and whether the situation to be endured is pleasant or unpleasant is inconsequential. Both are fleeting experiences and shall pass with time.
All the sayings about the “preciousness” of time are true and when life unveils in ways that demonstrate this lesson clearly, it behooves the recipient TO PAY ATTENTION. Otherwise the lessons keeps repeating until we wise up enough to learn what is necessary in our process of individual evolution”
KatandLiz 