The Journey of Grief and Healing

“Tomorrow isn’t promised.” We’ve all heard it or said it but we don’t truly GET IT until the rug is pulled out from beneath us.

For me, it was my grandmother’s passing just over 2 years and two months ago. I went back and forth on when to go back as she’d get better, decline then repeat. We booked the flight. I was going to deliver on the promise she would see me again. I was set on it.

Instead the clouds parted on the cloudiest of days while I stood outside sharing with the neighbor of our travel plans the following day. The moment the clouds opened, I knew what had happened. It’s one of those eery things you can’t explain. My heart dropped as I quickly dashed inside to find a missed call on my phone. The call that would literally leave me breathless for a moment. The news that would reshape a lot of things for me.

I was too late. Less than a day late to rush to my grandmother’s side. My grandma, one of my most treasured loved ones. A lateness I would wrestle with greatly for many, many months. A promise I made her that I’d get there in time shattered alongside my heart. A great lesson that would take months and months…years, really… to recover from. A lesson that I would carry with me forever – that now is now.

I spent a while after my grandmother passed wondering why one of my favorite humans couldn’t be saved from the cancer.

Wasn’t God bigger? Couldn’t He bring the dead to life? Why couldn’t He save her from this?? He’s saved countless others from the monster called cancer.

Then I realized something — She didn’t need to be saved from Heaven. She needed to be saved from the cancer and that’s exactly what God delivered on. He saved her from the constant fear she lived in that it would sweep her away that crippled her ability to live in the present moments. He saved her from the lifestyle she unknowingly lived filled with carcinogenic products she used every day and never realized or fully comprehended.

Only 5-10% of cancer is genetic. The remaining percent is environmental – meaning the products we use and consume. Hers wasn’t genetic – it was environmental (this is a BIG part of my WHY of what I do now). Then later it was compounded with cancer treatment of non-hodgkins lymphoma causing her leukemia (per her own oncologist).

I asked God to save her and He delivered. It took years to understand it because I loved her so very much and selfishly wanted her here on earth. Once I realized the mercy and deliverance of her being saved from the cancer (although differently than I expected) it made sense and was like a salve to my healing process. He saved her.

This journey of losing my grandma has served to be one of the most interesting journeys that I never expected to be on. The timing wildly interesting since I was expecting a new life as she was losing hers and the lessons I’ve learned along her loss and my healing of it. Feelings aren’t my favorite thing to talk about. I’d rather brush them aside and choose distraction of anything else.

Yet when I’ve really leaned it and faced them -— the healing came. The understanding came. The ability to look grief in the face and handle it was empowering. I was no longer controlled by the overwhelming sadness like before.

Sure, I find myself wishing I could call just one more time like we did several times a week. I wish I could tell her the hilarious things the kids do that I can imagine her laughter about them. I can still hear her voice in my mind in certain situations or memories come to the forefront of my mind that I shared with her.

I’m not sure those things will ever truly and fully go away but I no longer hold my breath and fight the emotion. They just are moments in time that I appreciate that I loved her so much that I wish she was here, and I move forward. It’s been a wild ride and the hardest walk of grief I’ve had to go through yet, but there’s been so much growth and so many lessons.