Doesn't Remind Me -- Audioslave

You know that sick feeling inside--the "sinking in the pit of your stomach" one? It's like that.

It's the same feeling you get when your parents go out and drop you off at your Grandparent's house. Your child mind struggles to understand how they can go out and have fun without you. A stirring of unease, wondering if they'll come back. Something is different from normal procedure. The dining table where you've had a thousand dinners with your parents and grandparents feels empty without those two extra place settings. Popcorn in wooden bowls and cute little monkey bed time slippers. It gets a little easier with each passing moment because you know that you're one minute closer to Mom and Dad coming back to pick you up. Despite that sinking feeling that tugs at you when you're reminded, you know you'll be all right.

"It only hurts when you think about it," My Grandpa Bill said, sharing his feelings about the passing of his own mother.

I have used these words to comfort myself for years. 

How can I not think about it?

We make new routines and go on living without the people that we miss. Missing them becomes part of the routine. Being without them becomes a part of life. The terrible sinking feeling deep down inside fades a little with the acceptance. I reflect. I survived all the other losses. I know that grief can consume me. It can sneak up on me when I think everything is going so well and try to drag me back under. But I've come too far to let that happen.

Right now Grandpa Bill is in the hospital and everything I felt when Mom died has come crashing back. The diagnosis given before all the test results come in is multiple myeloma. Dad and Billie told me everything the doctors have said so that I can send a report to the rest of the family. A yawning, gaping hole opened inside me again. It is the same voice telling me, taunting me as I clutched my lipstick kiss in my hand on my very first day of school--that my Mother is never coming back. Now it's telling me that everyone I've ever known and loved is going to die. And I will have to watch it happen until it's my turn. 

Many hours and memories later and here we are, again, bracing for the storm. I don't know why I got comfortable--so comfortable in this happiness I've created. I thought I was about to close a book when another chapter appeared! The sinking, sick, something's-not-quite-right feeling hasn't left me since I began to consider the possibility of losing my Grandpa. It eases a little when I remember that it is our resistance to change that causes our distress.

It is our attachment that causes our suffering. 

I railed against these words when I first began to study mindfulness. It was a long time before the words came to mean something to me. Even now, I still have moments in which I am not comforted by them. 

I go Ice Princess numb when overwhelmed by stressful and emotional situations. I realize that I still do it and tell myself that it's okay to feel the feelings. But it doesn't happen just because I tell myself to feel it. I let it all come rushing out when I write, though.