Loss and Joy
Just a quick update tonight!
We had a bittersweet weekend around here. Terence and I celebrated our 18th anniversary, which (like most years) kind of felt like an afterthought. It's not that we don't want to celebrate, or that we aren't thrilled to still be married. It's just that our anniversary always falls right smack in the middle of RenFest season when it feels like we are two ships passing in the night (well, in the mid-morning, before he leaves for work). He was exhausted, too. He'd been working extra off-duty jobs and also had some difficult accidents. (Fatals are always extra hard, especially when he has to interview the spouse of the person who died.) Anyway, Terence worked RenFest traffic on Saturday and then he wanted to go out after he finished-- even though he knew by 9pm I'd be heading into zombie territory. He said it didn't matter if I fell asleep in the car, as long as we were together.
But just before he made it home from work, he got news that his grandmother had passed away. We had been expecting the word to come at any time-- she was 96 and her health had been declining sharply over the last few months. When she learned (only a week ago, I think) that she had stage 4 cancer, Terence's mom told us she wouldn't have very long.
I thought Terence would take the news harder than he did. Though she was his last living grandparent, all the others died before he was born. And he was so close to his grandma. She raised him until he was six and always treated him more like a son. But when the news actually came, he felt nothing but peace. I think part of it was because he had just spoken to her recently on the phone, and also we got out to Mississippi to see her in the fall. So he didn't feel regret on that score. Most of all, he said he just felt peace. He knew she was all right. He knew he was going to see her again. This is the greatest peace that our beliefs bring us. We know death is not the end.
Till we meet again, Grandma. We love you!
We had a bittersweet weekend around here. Terence and I celebrated our 18th anniversary, which (like most years) kind of felt like an afterthought. It's not that we don't want to celebrate, or that we aren't thrilled to still be married. It's just that our anniversary always falls right smack in the middle of RenFest season when it feels like we are two ships passing in the night (well, in the mid-morning, before he leaves for work). He was exhausted, too. He'd been working extra off-duty jobs and also had some difficult accidents. (Fatals are always extra hard, especially when he has to interview the spouse of the person who died.) Anyway, Terence worked RenFest traffic on Saturday and then he wanted to go out after he finished-- even though he knew by 9pm I'd be heading into zombie territory. He said it didn't matter if I fell asleep in the car, as long as we were together.
But just before he made it home from work, he got news that his grandmother had passed away. We had been expecting the word to come at any time-- she was 96 and her health had been declining sharply over the last few months. When she learned (only a week ago, I think) that she had stage 4 cancer, Terence's mom told us she wouldn't have very long.
I thought Terence would take the news harder than he did. Though she was his last living grandparent, all the others died before he was born. And he was so close to his grandma. She raised him until he was six and always treated him more like a son. But when the news actually came, he felt nothing but peace. I think part of it was because he had just spoken to her recently on the phone, and also we got out to Mississippi to see her in the fall. So he didn't feel regret on that score. Most of all, he said he just felt peace. He knew she was all right. He knew he was going to see her again. This is the greatest peace that our beliefs bring us. We know death is not the end.
Till we meet again, Grandma. We love you!
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