Afterword
This is the end. The story is over. Where things go from here is up to your imagination. This part is not a necessary read. It holds no plot related to the story. It is merely a deep dive into why this story was written. And toward the end of it, a bit of a message to you, the reader. If you choose to read, thank you. If you don’t, thank you for reading this far.
Just Breathe by Pearl Jam
T/W: Talk of death, dying, suicide, loss, and grief
I intended for this to be longer, for the angst to last further, for the emotional trauma to carry on. But as I headed into what I initially thought would be more chapters, it became glaringly apparent to me, that this story was simply a strange mirror of my own mental and emotional journey this past year. It became a much more personal piece than I ever thought it would be. A true portion of myself laid bare. I was forced, as I posted Chapter 12, to stop writing and posting for about a week to just let it all soak in so that I didn’t spiral. The current ending was not my originally intended ending, but instead the ending I needed.
2025 has not been the most kind and trying to find the holiday spirit as we came into the end of the year was…taxing to say the least.
My year started with my 90 year old grandmother falling ill and, a bit later, the news that she had terminal cancer. She was my last living grandparent and a source of so much joy and light in my life, that I didn’t even realize until that point.
Loosing my other grandparents had been different, in there own way. One of my grandpas was gone long before I was even born. The other, I was 10 when he died of cancer. It was a long fought battle with melanoma, but my parents sheltered me from so much of it that I don’t recollect much outside of his funeral. But it still hit me hard, as he was basically my best friend.
I was 16 when my other grandmother committed suicide, both because of her heartbreak from having lost my grandpa and from all the drugs doctors had put her on that had conflicting side effects. But we had spent the better part of 6 years watching her become a shadow of herself and pull away. I had mourned her long before she died. Even now, thinking of her and that time, I just have a sense of numbness that overcomes me.
They were both gone in an instant.
I didn’t know how different this would be from previous experiences.
It was both a blessing and a curse to spend those final weeks with her.
A curse because it was so painful to watch her wither away. To watch the strong, joyful woman I had known my whole life grow frail and weak. To watch my parents agonize over taking care of her and neglect themselves.
Through it all, I stepped up. As they stood vigil over her and became full time caretakers, even with at home hospice care coming daily except on weekends, I stepped into their roles within our home; continuing to work a 40 hour job and taking on the additional tasks of all the chores on our small ranch, feeding and tending to our livestock, as well as making sure my parents stayed fed. Used up almost all my vacation time, except what I knew I would need later in the year for my sister’s wedding.
But it was a blessing too. I will never forget the quiet strength of her in those final weeks. The acceptance of what was to come. She worried not for herself, but only for us. Secure in her faith and knowing what awaited her beyond this life. Reassuring us constantly that it would all be alright, that she did not want us to cry for her, but to be joyful. She had never been more beautiful than in those final moments.
I was there, at her house, the morning she passed. I was not inside with her, but outside on her porch. I remember the sounds of my father’s prayers, asking that she be taken home, that her pain be ended. The soft sounds of my mother crying. The wet gurgle of her shuddered breathes. The steady hum of the oxygen machine beside her bed. The chirping of the birds, the slight rustle of the breeze through the trees around her porch.
The way that the world seemed to go silent and still for a moment, that moment, before my father spoke the words “It’s done.”
What had felt like a year of agony and heartache, but was actually just 5-6 weeks, was finally over.
We buried her about a week later, on Mother’s Day. There was no better day for it. A testament and the highest honor to the woman, the mother, the matriarch she was and forever will be. Survived by a small horde of grandchildren and great-grandchildren alike. Four sons, raised by herself, after the untimely death of her alcoholic husband in the early 70s. No family around to help, as she had run off to elope in her early 20s and her family had moved away with no word of where to when she returned. And her husband had left all his family behind to escape something, debt collectors maybe? They both took it to their graves so we may never know.
Trying to get back to some sense of normal was hard. We’d been so busy, so consumed by her, the absence almost created a vacuum. It threatened to destroy us all.
My sister had been planning her wedding prior to the news of our grandmother’s illness. She paused in the middle of it because our grandmother was supposed to be her flower girl. It took months before she got back to it. And while I was happy for my sister on some base level, I will always feel she could have done better than the man she is with. But she made her choice in life partner.
I spent the rest the year, up until a few weeks before her wedding in October, grappling with the fact that she was actually marrying him. Coming to terms with the fact that I was her maid of honor, who had to give a speech, and I needed to find a way to be happy for her. I made my peace with it, though it was a struggle.
Every moment of angst in this story is in some way a reflection of my grief, my anger, my mental state, my emotional struggle throughout this year. The way that the reader is haunted by smells and pictures and places, a reflection of how those same things bring me memories of my grandmother. Every sob, every tear, every movement made a mirror image of something that in real life I felt or did. A lie lived for so long, metaphorically my denial over what was happening. Shane is representative of my life before my grandmother died, the reader my life now. The fact that it is a marriage shattered a reflection of my own turmoil over my sister’s wedding.
And the second half of this story, a testament to how far I have come and how far I intend to keep going. A reflection of the peace I made with my sister’s wedding and her chosen partner. Of coming to terms with a world where I can no longer just call my grandmother. A reflection of my working on finding joy I thought I had lost. For the first time in over 20 years I’m watching football games with my family again. And, as long as the team we’re routing for is winning, loving every minute of it. I have actively written this story and posted it. Something I haven’t really done since 2015. A day and age when writing was my everything. When I put more effort into a work of fanfiction than I did my college courses.
I am trying not to take a single moment for granted. To find the beauty in everything.
I will forever be grateful for the 32 years I got with her.
It still hurts…
But it will always hurt…
I want to thank everyone for joining me on this journey.
To everyone who commented or who simply gave this a read or a bookmark or a kudos, those steadily growing numbers meant just as much to me as every comment left. Each one of you has helped me to heal a little more, even though, when I first posted this, I held no real expectations.
I do not know what the future holds. I do not know if I will continue to write and post stories. Maybe someday, I will explore the other side of this that I originally intended to write. But please feel free to comment, to reach out on my Tumblr (linked in my profile), or here in a comment on any of my works. I will respond to questions, as soon as time allows it.
Thank you again for reading…
And maybe relating…
Or for just feeling something, that maybe was beyond yourself…
May 2026 be a better year for us all.
And though it has nothing to do with this story in any way, I want to share and to leave you, with the poem and words that I wrote for and spoke at my grandmother’s funeral.
Butterfly Wings
90 years of butterfly wings,
Beating gently at a pond.
Creating ripples great and small,
That bounce and reflect on and on.
Each ripple is a moment,
An instance caught in time.
An instance where she touched our hearts,
A moment most sublime.
Those ripples they will grow,
Forever and ever on.
Always there in each of us,
Even when we too are gone.
For we will leave our own ripples,
Each of them great and small.
But it is from her beating wings,
That we spread ours at all.
Too many times in my life have I not gotten that last good bye, that last I love you. This time I was blessed with the chance to do just that. I said “I love” a thousand times in a week, but I never said good bye. Because it isn’t good bye. It’s always going to be “I’ll see you later”. I will see you in spring flowers. In the reaching branches of an oak; sturdy and strong against the winds and rain that would like to see it bend and break. I’ll see you in the flowing waters of every river and creek. I’ll see the blue of your eyes in the sky on a sunny day. And I’ll see your smiling face, bursting with pride and joy on the day I join you in Glory. So, I love you and I’ll see you later.
