And Butterpea Makes 3

I have to work tomorrow morning and I suppose I should be in bed, but I finally cried about losing my grandmother.  I had put grieving for her on the back burner while I have been dealing with losing Shannon and all that his loss has entailed.  

 For those of you who don’t know, Margaret was Webb’s mom, and Webb is my biological dad.  We speak on occasion.  He doesn’t deserve it.  I honestly think that more than crying for Memaw, I am crying for the loss of so many years of happy memories that could have been.  She was a great person who always made me smile.  However, I always felt somehow betrayed by her.  When my father lost his parental rights I was 7.  I was in the second grade.  And she just disappeared.  As if she signed away her rights as well.  I have felt guilt in the past about not having more of a relationship with her, but I just think back to all of those years when, because I didn’t see Webb, I didn’t see her.  Whole years would go by.   No more backyard fun.  No more cousins.  No more aunts and uncles.  No more anything.  Just gone.  Christmas maybe, but that’s just part of a day per year.  So, while I cry for her now, she’s been gone a very long time really.  However, I finally posted on her obit page and here is what it says. 

“Memaw, I am so glad Mally got to meet you. To me, you are red popsicles in the backyard swing, lima beans and the best ice tea, long holiday talks on the sofa, fancy paper dolls and the most beautiful dollhouses, teddy bears in velvet clothes, a huge swimming pool and catching baby frogs in buckets.  Thanks for all the best memories.”

Mally will never know how funny she was.  How she lit up the room and was so brilliant.  And she was beautiful too.    I am truly glad Mally got to meet her.  She won’t remember, but I took pictures.   The memories I do have are great ones.  And that makes me sad for all the ones I just don’t have.  At the mercy of my parents, a divorce, just the way life goes.  I guess I could have tried to seek her out more as an adult.  I have been one for a very long time now.  I never wanted to visit her because she lived with Webb and visiting her meant visiting him.  Most of my Hatten relatives don’t understand why that was so hard, but when your father gives up rights to you, declaring before the world what you already knew, that he doesn’t care about you at all, it amazingly makes you into this adult that doesn’t want to see him any more.  It continues to be a struggle for me.   I digress into other things, but the long and short of it is that I didn’t want to go because he was there.

I talked to Shannon’s dad today.  In speaking, I told him about Memaw and how I missed her funeral to stay in Dallas and go to Shannon’s memorial service.  I hadn’t talked about it since that one blog a month ago today.  So when I got some time to myself tonight I started to realize I really still have some guilt about it.  But I am not superwoman.  I couldn’t do back-to-back days of funerals in 2 different states that are 8 hours apart.    Maybe that’s the guilt right there.  That I could have made it work somehow and I just didn’t.  My grief for Shannon just outweighed my grief for Margaret.  And it was all just more than I could handle dealing with at once.

I like to think there’s a Heaven somewhere and she’s there talking to Shannon and they are making each other laugh.  Most times I have a hard time believing in Heaven.  Then when you lose someone you realize that there just has to be one because the idea of not seeing your loved ones again is just too hard to accept.