Spring Fever 2021

Dear UD,

I miss spring in Missouri—smiling daffodils, green green grass, tiny buds on limbs, morel mushrooms hunts, crocuses popping up out of the ground even with a light dusting of snow, earthworms wiggling away from hungry robins and blue jays, bird nests speckled with tiny eggs, chick hatchlings chirping, box turtles just out of hibernation, freshly tilled gardens planted with rows of spinach and green onions and carrots, quick spring showers that leave mud and puddles, asparagus sprigs standing proudly ready to pick and eat....the beauty of spring teeming with life, yes, I miss it so.

 

                But more than anything, I miss Mom, miss Dad, miss you, miss the me I was then, miss the family unity, miss what passed for normal just six years ago.

 

                Grief changes us. It rips us apart and puts us back together like a Humpty Dumpty that could never be put right again.

 

                Uncle David, I don’t know how you did it—you, mom, and Uncle Bob. You were all in your late twenties when you lost your mom, and then in your forties when you lost your dad. I remember your lament of “we’re orphans now. We’re orphans now” at Grandpa Bruce’s funeral. I didn’t understand anything then. Not at all. No one can at all…until it happens. But now. Now, I need your guidance and wisdom. How did you do it? How did you all process and handle that grief and still move forward with life and love and living? How did you all still keep the family together and make it seem so easy? I don’t know how we’re supposed to do it without you and mom. Or is that your secret? That you had each other? The three of you together could face anything. Well, the three of you and God. Having a relationship with God—is that your secret?

I have siblings I love and am close to. I have God. We still even have Uncle Bob (Thank God). But nothing’s the same now. Nothing is okay without you all. Nothing. It’s been six years since we lost you and Dad and two years since we lost mom, and it still hurts so much. I still reach for the phone all the time to call mom, call you. I still ache to hear mom’s voice, your voice, again. I still have a hole in my heart where I am missing mom.

 

America gives us three days to grieve. What a joke. Grief is a never-ending monster of heavy aches and overwhelming sadness. After three days, people tell us to move on, stay busy, get back to life and living. After a year or two, they tell us to let go of the old or previous pain, that it has nothing to do with anything happening in life now. What they don’t realize is that we ARE moving on, staying busy, living, and even moving forward because there’s no other choice; however, the pain is ever present, ever there, ever impacting everything everything everything that happens in life from that moment on. Yes, the pain ebbs and flows. The wound scars over. The bruise fades. Time dulls the ache, and memories, old and new, fill the hole in our hearts to a certain extent. However, the pain NEVER goes completely away, and there’s not a second when we don’t see and feel that grief. Because moving forward means a new normal, a new life, a new self. It means living in the shadow of what used to be and will never be again, not on this earth.

 

There are times when living is lighter again, fun again, happy again, and there are still times, will always be times, when the grief encompasses us and all we do. Today is your special day, UD, and so I feel both happy and sad. Happy that we had you in our lives, happy for all the memories and all that we learned from you, happy that you lived and loved once upon a time on this earth and we got to share part of that journey with you. At the same time, I am still so sad without you here with us.

 

Moving forward also means remembering and honoring what was and the people who were such a vital part of our story. Filling our hearts and lives with reminiscent moments. Like seeing a full moon and knowing mom is looking down and smiling. Or searching for signs of spring just like mom and you, UD. Or celebrating birthdays with traditions and recipes passed on from generation to generation.

 

Which brings us back to you. Happy birthday, Uncle David. Thank you for all that you were and are in our lives.

 

Love, Rach