My favorite Holiday reminds me of my grandparents

It didn't come after the memorial service...

It didn't come after Lobster day...

Will it come over Thanksgiving? My favorite holiday and the holiday to mark my grandparents anniversary and my grandmother's birthday.

Probably not.

Will it ever come? Does it need to come?

These are the questions that I have been asking myself over the last few weeks. I may be 3000 miles away, but it seems like we are still stuck, still searching, still waiting, still looking for closure.

Maybe it is just me, maybe I can't get the closure because I am far away and don't see how the family interacts. I don't think it is just me though.

I think how November 2009 came and how I felt when it really has been a year since we said goodbye to our grandparents, I think deep down inside we all knew that would be the last time we would see them like that. Them... how we know them. I was not there for the going away picnic, but from the photos they looked so happy, especially grandpa. He was pulled from the brink and was going on to live his life like normal. Going to Florida, only a little bit behind schedule. See, nothing ever changes in Connecticut. One of the things that I could count on.

Here we are now, just days away from Thanksgiving, this was always my favorite holiday and seeing my grandmother in action on this holiday as a kid made me want to be just like her. Since I was 21, I have prepared a Thanksgiving meal each year, with only one exception – their 60^th anniversary celebration dinner.

It has been 8 months since they have passed and in that time our family has had so much happen, so much personal tragedy and so much triumph. It seems almost impossible that all that has happened in a short 8 month time frame. It is like karma was getting even with us, things were good for so long and then we just had to deal with some bad stuff for a while. But then I remember, no matter how bad it keeps getting, how impossible it all seems – think of what Grandma and Grandpa went through. All of the loss that they suffered and they just kept going forward. For a good part of her life, Gram was a teacher. Even in her death, she is still a teacher.

I am not sure when closure for me will come. Maybe it will come next summer when I come back to Latimer Point and stay at the cottage. Maybe it will come when I go to visit their grave site, maybe it will come when I can finally work up the courage to watch the DVD of photos that my cousins worked so hard to put together. For now, I take comfort in something as simple as my grandmother's perfectly printed Jam labels, I carry one that says "blueberry" with me all the time.

Maybe it will never come...then what? I guess I'll just have to live life like my grandparents taught me. One day at a time and don't lose sight of what is right in front of you. Although I am very sad that they are no longer with us...I shudder at the thought that we could have never have had them to begin with and I am happy that I has as much time with them as I did.

I miss them, but I am happy!!