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Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Empty Rooms

You'll probably notice, if you bother checking up on this blog, that I haven't made a post in almost a year. It's not that I'm short on ideas or material (I have notebooks full of things I could write about), it's that sometimes life throws you some very personal curveballs, and those things tend to be the hardest to write about.


On August 2, 2013, the Mathias clan lost our beloved Matriarch: my paternal grandmother. I don't think anyone is ever prepared for that kind of loss, even though you know it's coming. In the six months that have followed, I have witnessed what it means to come unglued. Other changes, like the recent relocation of my grandfather into an assisted living facility, have reinforced my conclusion that we have all lost an anchor and haven't quite figured out how to stop drifting, yet.

I went into their home the other day, to vacuum and do some more cleaning now that the furniture has been moved out, and I was overblown by how awful it felt to see those rooms empty. The walls there are still radiating with more than 40 years of love, but there is no one there to feel it. I sat in the middle of the bedroom floor and let it soak into my bones. I had a lot of time to reflect on my life and my choices for the future. I could choose to wallow in my grief, or to use it as a motivator to become the kind of person that my grandmother was. I could use my hard times to become a vessel of love.

It's been six months, now. For me, it's time to create an anchor of my own, and become my best self. I am so grateful for the example I was blessed with, and for the 23 years I was able to spend with my grandmother on this earth.

Spring is coming. It's time to begin again.