Grief

Grief is an imbecile. It's a drunken stumbling moron. I can't seem to pin it down. There are brief flashes where I can't breathe, can't think too numb or overwhelmed to be sensible. Then I'm giddy with a survivors enthusiasm, smelling the air anew, feeling the warmth of a stray sunbeam. I Will miss her, oh how I will. My Nonnie, my grandma. She was tough and quiet. Funny and strong. She went out like a flickering candle weaker and weaker until at last her light was extinguished. A life fully led. A ride taken with hands in the air screaming all the way down. And yet I ache. I hurt. Is it the dilemma of the religiously lost? Is it the discomfort at being relieved for another brief excuse to see my HUGE extended family all in one place - even if they're crying and distraught? I'm trapped in the sludge of some stage of grief I can't identify. Grief, that flickering will-o wisp. Dancing where I can't quite get a hold of it. I'd like to have a good cry, to shake my impotent fists at the skies- but I haven't. And I don't know when/if I will. It's too soon too sharp, too fresh. I'm still gasping still aching from the blow. What's next? What's next?

hybernate?

Ah Fall. Ah winter. Already my toes are tingeling. I've caught my first cold. The desperate fridged promise of weather to come frosts my window sheild. Spoilt desert rat, the promise of color and change lured me from the dusty embrace of a place that I never wanted to call home. The colors are amazing- green, red,brown. The change is new and exciting. The parents and extended family I call home are overbearing at close range but once I've run I find myself glancing back. Over sholder wishing they'd call me back, back home. It's not like I didn't know what I was getting into. This half of the family is so sharp, so harsh so distant. How the person I love can have not only lived with this but warmed to a wonderful person is beyond my sensibilities. There is nothing in me that wants to hold the nettles of his family tree. My children sometimes cry. Daddy gone in a forign land for a job they can't, don't, won't comprehend. The other Grandma either too distant or FAR too close. So sharp and harsh trying to love with her strange smother.
I dread the ice the white the cold. The wind that blasts into the bones. But I wish for snow angles, snow men, and that magical glimmer of frozen morning so I've come to a place that's as close to a forign land a I can manage just yet. For color, for change, for the very same winder I dread.