Grief is such a strange and unpredictable thing. I can go an entire week and think that I'm doing just fine. My standard answer when people ask how I'm doing is "I'm okay." And really, I do believe this when I say it. But every once in a while, I'll be in some inopportune place (say at a barbeque in someone's backyard) and a friend will innocently ask, "How are you?" And just as my canned answer is about to come out of my lips...WHAM! A rogue wave of grief BODY SLAMS me and I suddenly find it difficult just to breathe much less answer the question. I try desperately to distract myself as the tears well up in my eyes and hope that the person asking doesn't notice the thickness in my voice as I lie..."I'm okay."
It's just never the right time or place. I see my children wail and cry in such a satisfying display of raw emotion over something as simple as his brother taking his toy, and I can't seem to allow myself to do the same...just let it all out. Instead it slips out a little here, a little there. I know it takes time and not much has passed since my beautiful auntie left us. I guess you can't schedule grief. You just have to roll with it when it comes.
One of my favorite books to read to the boys says at the very end "And if I had a million days, and time enough for all the praise, I couldn't tell you all the ways I love you." So today I'm going to write about one of the many things I loved about Auntie Gloria. Here's a really important one: she always strove to be beautiful on the inside as well as the outside.
When Gloria was a young child, my grandmother quickly saw that she was going to be exceptionally beautiful. Not wanting her to grow up spoiled by her looks, she would tell her "Pretty is as pretty does." Isn't that smart? I believe Gloria really took Grandma's wise words to heart.
My mother recently shared with me that when she was little she asked her older and wiser sister "How do you make friends?" and Gloria answered, "Well, you just smile at everyone." How sweet is that? That is exactly what I always saw her do. She smiled and she listened and she responded graciously to others even when they were not being so nice themselves. I have often heard stories of how much people liked her who didn't even know her well.
Like the man who used to go to my church. When he found out my mom was Gloria's sister he felt compelled to share that he had always liked her...that even though he wasn't one of the popular kids, she was always nice to him. That may seem small, but her kindness must have really impacted him to remember that decades after the fact.
This picture cracks me up because it is so pouty and so NOT the way I ever remember my auntie being. She was known as Allison by now and had begun her career in modeling.
At her memorial, which was beautiful by the way, the one thing that was said the most about her was that she was a great listener and truly cared about what was going on in other peoples lives...that it was so apparent that their happiness was really important to her. No surprise that this was my experience with her as well.
I had the blessing and privilege of working with my auntie for several years. She is the one who got me the job where I still work to this day. I treasure the times I got to spend with her that never would have happened had I not taken that job. I got to know her not only as an aunt, but as a friend. Sometimes we would go out to lunch to catch up on life, but most of the time, we would just talk here and there as we went through our day. And she would always take time to really listen to how I was doing and what was going on in my life. Which leads me to wonder, did I do the same for her???
(Here she's holding my children with her daughter, Kym.)
1 comment:
Beautiful, Mindy. Grief takes time and as you well know is unpredictable. You just kind of have to surf the set when it approaches and enjoy the calm in between. I love you my friend.
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