Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Let it burn.


It's all right to cry
Crying gets the sad out of you
It's all right to cry
It might make you feel better

Raindrops from your eyes
Washing all the mad out of you
Raindrops from your eyes
It's gonna make you feel better

It's all right to feel things
Though the feelings may be strange
Feelings are such real things
And they change and change and change

Sad 'n' grumpy, down in the dumpy
Snuggly, hugly, mean 'n' ugly
Sloppy, slappy, hoppy, happy
Change and change and change

It's all right to know
Feelings come and feelings go
It's all right to cry
It might make you feel better

~ Rosey Grier, Free to Be You and Me


My outlook on life is almost always sunny. I prefer smiling to frowning and laughing to crying. Which is generally where I'm at.

But.

I don't like numbness. I mean, unless it's helping me while pushing out a 9 pound baby or something. Otherwise I like to feel things. It makes me feel alive and connected to what's happening around me.

Yeah.

Today is August 11. My sister, Deanna, would have turned 47 today. And just typing that makes me smile because she loved her birthday. She never let it just slide on by without any sort of pomp or circumstance--which to her was simply defined as being surrounded by friends and love. Deanna was all about acknowledging people and lives and milestones. Herself included.

That woman knew how to live.

So that--thoughts of how she lived her life so big and full--always make me laugh. But conversely, it stirs inside of me these complicated emotions. Like, anything that I live through or witness that is impossibly beautiful or wonderful, I imagine her enjoying it. And again, the smile comes followed by that wave of emotion pushing against my eyeballs for a fleeting second. Then, almost always, it quickly washes over.

But today is kind of different. Her birthday makes me ache to speak to her. So, so badly.

Yeah.

Another thing: I wasn't on Facebook when my sister was alive. And, as silly as it sounds, I came unglued today when trying to tag her in my post today. I simply wanted to say that I loved her and when I typed her name and it didn't pop up on a pull down page, I was reminded that there wasn't really a way to reconcile that. Because that would require her to be here to click that lonely little "accept request" button. But she never will.

And that? That did it. So instead of countering it with a phone call to a friend or some warm and fuzzy thoughts, I decided to just let it burn. To let myself cry the ugliest of cries and miss her in the rawest, most primal way. To speak out loud that I'm super sad that she's not here and how every single perfect moment or funny event is bittersweet without her. And I told her all of that. I did.

I am okay. I am. But that doesn't mean that I don't deeply miss my sister every single day. But especially today. Because this was her day.

Today, I decided to just let it burn. Let the hurt remind me of how fortunate I am to have known her. Isaiah cried a few times today, too. And I just held him tight and told him the same thing: "Let it burn, son. It's okay." Because it was.

And it is.

I'm rambling, I know. But really, I just wanted to take a moment to reflect on my sister's life. Because her life was awesome. And so was she.

Yeah.

That's all I've got. Thank you for listening, okay?

***

Now playing on my mental iPod. . . . .

8 comments:

  1. My mom died when I was 16 and I still get that "burn" sometimes out of the blue. Someone once told me that I should treasure that feeling and those emotions. It means that I had a wonderful loving relationship with her if it still affects me so strongly. Some people don't get that type of love.
    -Bridgette

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  2. I'm so sorry. It's okay. I hear you.

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  3. Happy birthday to your beautiful Deana. I can imagine how difficult it is to get through these special days without her. I'm thinking of you.

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  4. Sometimes the only proper response is to let out the raw emotion that grief engenders.
    Deanna would understand. She would cry with you.

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  5. Deanna was DOPEness. A made up word that I only use when describing someone two steps past perfect. That she was. Happy Birthday, Soror/Friend. We miss you down here. Praying for you, Kim.

    Angela F.

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  6. Your description of how all beautiful moments are bittersweet without her here is powerful and perfect. Hugs

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  7. Well, I hope someone brings Isaiah cake and balloons too, so he can celebrate that she was here and that he loved her. That's what I do on my brother's birthday. It's been 44 years since he died in Vietnam, and it still burns. I know it always will.

    ReplyDelete

"Tell me something good. . . tell me that you like it, yeah." ~ Chaka Khan

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