Grief

"You grieve at the level you loved." - Unknown

I have never once cried at a funeral. For some reason, that seems odd to me. Like, if you truly loved and miss that person, shouldn't your body break into your emotions and show them? I know not everybody shows emotion, and that's fine. But it leaves me with an empty feeling when I can't show mine.

When my dad died, when I was little. I remember being in the car with my mom and brother and driving to my uncle's place. I remember my uncle running up to the car to stop it, and frantically telling my mom something. I remember her jumping out of the car and running full speed for the field. I remember spending that entire day at my uncle's with my brother and cousins. I don't remember a wake or a funeral. I do, however, remember my mom taking my brother and I to see the body. It scared me, seeing that. When you're not even 5 years old yet, you can't really comprehend the word 'death'. The sentence, "Your father is dead," meant nothing to me. All I understood was that he was gone, and he wasn't coming back. When she took us up to the casket, we were told to say goodbye. My brother poked my dad's face. I took one look and ran away. I couldn't go near him. I don't have one single memory of my dad, other than that moment.

My "aunt" Claire was an amazing person. She ran an unofficial adoption agency. (At least, that's the way it's been described to me.) She helped find homes for and took in 101 kids, my birth mother and I being 2 of them. I'm pretty sure she was at my birth (being that my birth mother was sent to live with her while she was still pregnant with me). She was like a 2nd mom ever since. My adoptive mother always tells this story of how fickle I was about people, and it's still a running joke in our family. Claire had told her, when my adoptive mom had 1st heard about me, that I wouldn't go to anyone else. I wouldn't let anyone else hold me, feed me, etc. (basically indicating that my adoptive mother might have difficulty with me at 1st). Now, when my adoptive mom went to California to get me, apparently, as soon as I saw her in the airport, I walked right to her. "She knew who her mother was," my mom always says. From that moment on, I wouldn't even let her set me down. On the plane ride home, my mom went to the bathroom and left me with my aunt. Well, I screamed bloody murder. I screamed so loud and so long that the stewardess went to the bathroom and knocked asking my mother if she could hurry it up, because I was disturbing the plane ride. I'm getting side-tracked, though. My aunt Claire was always there, even though she still lived in California, and my family and I lived in New York. She used to come visit us with some of the kids she had at the time, and we'd always do something fun, something special. When she was diagnosed with cancer, my mom, brother, and I wrote her a letter almost every day for over a year, and she'd write these 7 page letters back to us once a week. The doctors told her 4 months, she lived 4 years. And she spent the last few years of her life in New York, in her hometown. It was nice to be able to go to her house whenever I wanted. Hang out with the kids, holiday dinners with everyone, etc. I felt like I was so lucky, to have 2 moms. When she died, I almost felt my heart stop. I cried for about 10 minutes. 10 minutes? That seems ridiculous to me. I loved that woman with all my heart, she was like a mother to me, for fucks sake. How the hell did I show such little emotion? I didn't cry at the wake, nor at the funeral. How could I want to smile at such a sad occasion? I had to keep stopping myself, why the fuck did I want to smile..? I don't get it. Maybe it's because Claire was such an optimistic person. She was always smiling, laughing, doing anything she could to make others happy. Maybe I was happy that she wasn't hurting anymore. But it just didn't seem right, the way I was feeling.

K.M.C. I didn't cry when I found out she died. Not one single solitary tear. Maybe I was just numb, but for my best friend to die? Everyone that knows me knows that I loved her the most. There will never be enough words to describe how much I loved her. I should have came out with something. It took 2 or 3 days, but if you've been reading this blog, you know I broke down. We're talking heart-wrenching, barely-breathing, choked out sobs. I've broken down a few other times since then. It'll be 2 months since she died, in less than a week. I think I will always be scarred. I'll continue to live with a chip on my shoulder, a dent in my armor. And the walls that I've so carefully constructed? There's a huge crack in them. And all the secrets, all the mistakes, all the things I've always been to afraid to tell anyone but her, will come out.

It's odd how I've cried more in the past year than I have in my 1st 21 years of living on this planet.

Maybe the way I act about death means that I'm broken. My grieving process is such a weird, fucked up process.

[Note: Not an actual point to this post. Just ranting.]