Day 3 of #Grief365: Meditation, Laughs and A Striking Medium Piece

My Saturday morning started with an early morning wake up call letting me know that my little cousins were going to be stopping by with breakfast.

I loved being able to see them. One of my biggest fears after my grandmother passed away was that I’d end up seeing less of them. They tended to come every Sunday to visit her and it shook me to think that I could be losing them too.

They’re a set of 3 siblings, 11, 9 and 7, and they’re pretty much the funnest kids out there. They’re still at the age where they love to cuddle and give big hugs. And every time I see them I give thanks up above, that for the most part, they’re getting to live a carefree childhood. By the time I was 11 I had already lost my mom and I ended up being 11 going on 30.

This is why I so enjoy the moments when I can be a kid with them.

This weekend our laughs came thanks to Calm, a meditation app I have on my phone. Shoulder to shoulder my two girl cousins, my pup and I lay on the bed and meditated. I put that in italics because we didn’t actually, my little cousins’ giggles and questions about what “connecting with your body” meant, just about had us laughing through the whole thing.

At one point one of my cousins actually fell asleep. (Full disclosure, when listening to Calm by myself it actually does work.)

After they left back home, I came across this article on Medium — “The Cure for Grief is Crappy Lifetime Movies.“

I appreciated reading someone else’s take on how he got through the holiday season and missing his mom, but by far my favorite takeaway comes at the very end:

“sometimes grief can be happy memories, because she loved this time, because she loved me.”

Thinking back on just how silly and fun our meditation moment was on Saturday morning, I am convinced it is the kind of situation that would have had my grandmother laughing out loud. She would have thoroughly enjoyed us being ourselves and being surrounded by so much love and camaraderie. In that moment, my grief was a happy memory she wasn’t a part of, but it was okay because she loved us…she loves us.