Leaning into it

My grandmother died this morning, fairly unexpectedly. Margaret C----, born Seguin. Raised 7 children, two of whom went before her. She would have been 95 this September, and, as far as these things go, had a really great run at it. She still lived in her home I remember seeing built when I was a little girl, and in fact, still drove. Very healthy, though of course frail over the past few years. She fell and broke her hip on Monday, had surgery last night, and then died of cardiac arrest this morning.

I'm in the edges of the family on this one, a goer-along, not in the middle of the vortex the way I was with my other grandparents. When my mother's father died in September 2001, the family swirl was a category 5 hurricane, all boats blown off their mooring and the landscape changed forever: anger and drama at the deathbed, angst over the will, my aunt no longer speaking to my mother, locus of family togetherness gone. This is more of a predictable spring rain, the passing of someone who lived a completed arc, no tectonic plates to shift as a result.

Because I'm in the margins here, and was amiable with but not close to this grandmother, I have the luxury of feeling slightly selfish about this. Mildly irritated with the timing, sighing with heaviness at yet another funeral so close after John's, tweaked with loss of my dad, irritated that I can't seem to spend a full week in my place with writing momentum, wishing my time with F wasn't going to be truncated a little. Working hard to find the space to honour my grandmother's life among my edgy little emotional space. Knowing I'll find the right zone, breathing deep.