I lied to you all.
Well meaning, well intentioned, I didn’t mean for them to be lies type lies…but I lied.

And I’m sorry.
If it’s any consolation, I was lying to myself too.
Well meaning, well intentioned, I didn’t mean for them to be lies types lies…but I lied.

And I’m sorry to myself too.

Around this time last year, I wrote a post about how I was going to Kick Grief’s Ass . It was the first anniversary of my grandmother’s death and I was determined to not sit in my sadness. To not let my grief overwhelm me.

So I wrote up a plan–that I didn’t even stick to remotely– put it in a blog post, and hit the publish button.

Everything in that list was so good and so well intentioned and are things that we could benefit from integrating into our life everyday, not just during hard times. So if you haven’t read it, you should.

Today marks year 2, and I’m now in the place that I was trying so desperately to get to last year. It doesn’t mean that I don’t ache because I miss my Nana so much, or I don’t cry when I explain to someone that she’s in Heaven now. It just means there are more days filled with true gratitude than deep sadness…and shoot, sometimes they still cozy up right next to each other.

And that’s okay too.

So here are some reflections that could be valuable to someone else dealing with loss…and just feel really damned good to send out into the universe.

Feel what you need to.

If I could go back to a year ago, Nik, I would say al lot. The biggest thing I would tell her is to feel what she needs to, not what is convenient for others or even herself.

In last year’s post, I made mention of how bereavement is only three days but how the hurt lasts for so much longer. What I failed to realize was I was doing the same thing as my HR policy.

In my mind, a year was enough.
A day of mourning under a blanket was enough.

But it wasn’t even close, because you will grieve for the rest of your life. I grieve the inability to glean direct wisdom from my Nana in my 30s. I think about how I would have surprised her with a pregnancy announcement. I am sad that she can’t see this version of me.

I like myself now more than I ever have. Am freer and surer than I’ve ever been, and she’s not physically here to experience that. She got drafts 1-27…but these last few iterations of myself have been my best ones yet.

I know she’s watching.
I’m aware because I can feel her.
And because people love to say that ish like it’s a consolation.
But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to see her. And talk to her. And laugh with her.

No amount of time is going to change that.
There is nothing wrong with that realization.

Happiness after loss isn’t betrayal, it’s freedom.

There is no shame in being happy.
You deserve happiness simply because you exist.

Das it.

There are no other requirements and there are no restrictions.

Only you know when you are ready to intentionally lay happiness over loss or what that happiness looks like. This year, for me it was realizing that on the anniversary of my Nana’s death I’ll be in California for work and then deciding to extend that work trip into a girl’s trip with my mom.

Why not go do hood rat things (more like mellow classy relaxing things) with my mom in Vegas after work? My only goal on the trip is to get her a little tipsy. I can feel my Nana rolling her eyes at me and saying, “Oh Nik.”

But secretly, I know she thinks it’s hilarious.

We will talk about all the ways my Nana was incredible…and some ways she wasn’t. We often try to make the dead perfect, that’s not fair. The imperfections are where the lessons lie. But I digress

Pay attention to all the ways they still show up.

I moved around in such a haze in year one of being Nana-less. But in this second year the haze lifted and what was left were all these ways my grandmother was still speaking to me.

She speaks in the black women who sit next to me in the shoe store who sound just like her.

I see her in the older woman cashier who slaps my husband’s hand at the grocery story because he’s trying to pack the grocery bags any ol’ kind of way instead of the way she wants them packed.

I smell her in the clothing section of Target where a woman walked past with a scent that so reminded me of my grandmother, I was tempted to ask a stranger for a hug.

I remember her through “On This Day” memories on social media and stories with my family members.

It will never compare to her physical presence…but if it’s all I have, I’ll treasure it.

But remember

These are my reflections.
The things I want to be able to read a year from now and think about how they are still true or not.

This isn’t a road map on how you’ll feel or what you should do.

But if you’d allow me to give up an offering, I wonder how you’d feel if you sat down and to write, draw, paint, dance, cook, or just release the way you’re currently feeling and how different that looks from where you previously were.

There’s magic in our musings, grief, kicked asses, and honesty,
Nicole