Grandparents

I attended a funeral yesterday for a woman who died at age 98. She had so many children and grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She was filled with joy and love. She lived the most amazing life.

I was struck by so many thoughts.

I want to live that way—full of joy and love to be shared. I want to live like everyday might be my last, like every moment is worth savoring. It won’t matter when I die whether I’m at my lowest weight or whether I gained 5 pounds the week before. There will be love and sadness and the people I love, and that’s what I need to cultivate while I am still on this earth, not an unrealistic body ideal.

I am also struck by the fact that I was so busy participating in my own grandparents’ funerals that I wasn’t actually able to be fully present. I didn’t get what I needed from those services. There were such amazingly stressful and terrible circumstances surrounding both my grandpa’s funeral and my grandma’s recent service this summer, that I wasn’t ready to receive the messages, the “closure” (whatever that actually means) of those days.

I miss them. I mourn their absences.

Day 127.