Tag: emotional

PawPaw’s Birthday

Today is my Pawpaw’s birthday.

Almost twelve years have passed since we lost him, and that number still surprises me. You’d think time would sand the edges down more than it has. It does soften some things—the sharpest ache, the shock of realizing he’s gone—but it never erases him. Not really. Not the way someone like Pawpaw could ever disappear.

There are days when I don’t think about him much at all, and then there are days like today when he feels right there. In the pauses. In the memories that show up uninvited. In the garden when the sun warms my face and it feels like one of his hugs. In the way I still catch myself wishing I could tell him something small and ordinary, just to hear what he’d say.

What I miss most isn’t one single moment or story. It’s the steadiness of him. The feeling that no matter what was going on in the world, Pawpaw was solid and safe and exactly who he’d always been. He didn’t need to be loud to be influential. He didn’t need to say much to say enough. Just being Pawpaw was more than sufficient.

Grief this far out looks different than it used to. It’s quieter. It doesn’t knock the wind out of me the way it once did. But it’s persistent in a gentle way, like a low hum that never fully goes silent. I miss him when something good happens. I miss him when life feels heavy. I miss him when my roses bloom and remind me of him. I miss him when I laugh at something and think, he would’ve loved that.

Birthdays have a way of doing that—of reopening doors you didn’t realize were still unlocked. Today isn’t sad exactly, but it’s tender. It’s a reminder that love doesn’t expire just because someone does. Almost twelve years later, Pawpaw is still part of who I am, still woven into my life in ways time can’t undo.

Happy birthday, Pawpaw. You are still missed. Still loved. Always remembered.

Blessings y’all – Amy

The Power of Getting Healthy

As a nation we spend our time running from one activity to the next – keeping our calendars so full that we never catch our breath – and the consequence of that is shoving every emotion and every thing we need to deal with on a shelf until the shelf, well, breaks. Most often breaks at an inopportune time that blows your life apart. When things erupt that trigger some emotion we find someone or something to blame it on so that we can move on without digging into the feeling. In the narcissistic society we live in it’s always someone else’s fault – even in situations we ourselves created. We cut people from our lives who push our buttons or make us feel more than we want to.

I know because I’ve done it. I learned it from my family and I taught it to mine. We tell ourselves it’s because they will “never” change and we “just can’t” handle them anymore. In reality it’s because we have our own growth to do it and THAT work is simply too hard. That work is uncomfortable. That work may fracture relationships that we shouldn’t have been in to begin with. We tell ourselves it’s the best thing for our family….in actuality we’re perpetuating the cycle. We’re teaching our kids to do the same running from instead of dealing with as we learned.

The thing is? When you do the work…when you find a doctor, counselor, mentor who is actually really qualified to help you…ooohhh let me tell you. That place? That healthy place where you can tell someone right then when they hurt your feelings or have a conflict? THAT is gold. That is a healing place that if we all learned how to find there wouldn’t be these hairline fractures under all our feet that is dividing our country.

The great part is that work also heals relationships. It puts people back in your life that those old voices were keeping away. It allows you to see people for who they are not for who/what all the history told you they were. THAT work takes away all the broken and clogged mental filters and just brings back clarity and sunshine.

It’s not a magic pill. It’s not an overnight change. It’s always a work in progress. As much as I’ve learned about myself in the last two years I still have days I log onto the counseling session in tears because I can’t unravel the complicated threads of my mind. But, you see, those threads don’t get nearly as tangled as they used to. I have tools now that I can use to help me come out of the dark places. I have the power to choose what I allow to rattle me and when I say “so what?”.

That is the best part. The power of getting healthy is that no one else ever has the power over me again. No one else has the power over my feelings. The power to make me feel small or like a bad person. Getting healthy means I know who I am, what my strengths and weaknesses are, and who I will and won’t allow into my healthy space. It allows me to cut through the bullshit games and be great when I know I’m where I need to be.

That’s the place I want to be in this second chapter of my life.

Blessings y’all – Amy