I Think I Miss Them 8.28.16

Tonight- I think I miss them. 

I'm beginning to learn that the grieving process that I was taught about in health and other classes throughout high school is totally BS. It is not surmountable in words how lonely I feel sometimes without them near- or how I long for them to see my accomplishments. 

I checked the mail today, as I do often for my parents, and as August reaches it's end, I realize there will be no card from Klaus Street. There will be no words of encouragement and wisdom written in her manuscript, the typed words underlined, and a promise of love as a grandmother only can. 

Recently, I have embarked on the journey that is adulthood. It's a lot of fun; I get to do more, and college in it's entirety is great. 

Tonight I looked up from a YouTube video that I was intently watching and laid eyes on the empty chair at the head of our dining room table. The chair loomed quiet in my presence, and I just stared at it. It obviously didn't do anything. But I could just feel the presence of the empty chair, and the presence of the empty mailbox. 

The reason I say that I think I miss them, well, there really isn't one. I don't miss them a lot more than I miss them now. The empty rooms and chairs used to leave me on my knees, and now I walk through the hallways and corridors and post office and classrooms with little more than a pang in my stomach about how they aren't in their earthly homes anymore. 

I think that I worry my mother with my new-found thoughts about God, Heaven, the universe, and reality. Sometimes. Sometimes she looks at me with the "thank God you're my daughter" look and tells me what a profound statement I have just made. 

Do you ever just sit and ponder eternity? I like to think that that's the modern day Christian mindset. Turn to Jesus, say to hell with the earth, and pretend that the "turn the other cheek" Bible verse means to completely ignore the fact that we are all human beings. 

My favorite thing to do is ponder mortality. We're only given such a short amount of time on this earth to do whatever it is we want to do. Some people believe that we are predestined by God to do things, but I like to think that he gives us the free will to make decisions about what we're going to do with our lives. Of course- he knows us even before we are knit together on a microscopic level. When he was creating the universe- he knew us. 

But. 

But that's not what I'm getting at here. We die. All of us someday will feel the inescapable arms of eternity and... then what? Do we transcend into a new dimension that is Heaven? Is Heaven a place that coexists on earth in the spirit realm? Do our spirits ascend to come kingdom held floating on impractical clouds? 

Who knows?!

I know that I don't know. 

I do know that I'm choosing to ponder the smaller questions. I'm choosing to live a full life, whatever that entails. Maybe there will be craziness that leaves me with stories to tell my children someday, or maybe I'll be polished and rational and completely free of anything remotely crazy. 

I lack the answers to things. People tell me to turn to the Bible and to God, and then they tell me that they don't believe that I am. Forgive me, but I am not a person who closes my eyes and bows my head to pray. I pray inside of my thoughts. I whisper to God on my way to my classes or as I'm cooking. I laugh at things that I think and thank God for giving me my sense of humor. 

I do not, however, attribute everything I accomplish to God. 
God is not writing this blog post, I am. 
God gave me the gift of writing, yes, but he is not writing this post or telling me what to write or any of that. He knows what I'm writing, and I'm sure he's known for all of eternity every detail about me and about my life... 
But he is not exerting the force to do this action. 
I am. 

I am at a place in life where I am very comfortable questioning things. I do not take what someone tells me as gospel truth, mostly because on more than one occasion this year, I was lied to on a massive level about what is right versus what is wrong. 

Right and wrong are determined by personal belief, experience, and socially created laws and expectations. Just because you believe that something is something, doesn't make it so. Just because you believe everything you read, watch, and hear- well, doesn't make them true. 

My point if I even have one, is this: 

YOU are responsible for you. 

God is not a puppet master. 

He will bless you even when you screw up, and he will bless people that don't even believe in him.

He does not sit up in Heaven dictating your actions. 
He is aware of them, but he is not controlling you or your decisions. 

Mortality is not a weakness. It is, if anything, the biggest strength given to mankind. God has always been, always will be. He has to see and experience anguish throughout all of time, while you only have to experience it for the smallest percentage of time in the universe. 

We have the power to think freely and to share our thoughts. I firmly believe that God created us to be intelligent beings- and not stupid ones. 

~

So tonight, I think I miss them. 

My grandad and my grammy- I miss them. 

(My nana I miss in a different sort of way, but it isn't pertinent to this post. We'll cover that another day.)

I miss their hugs more than I miss anything else. 

I am haunted by the empty chairs at my dining room table, and by the silence that falls over my house at nighttime. There is no interruption of the quiet- no low hum of an oxygen machine. It has been almost two years, and I am still pained by the quiet. 

I reread a note that my grammy sent me years ago after I moved. She was telling me how much she missed me. Her love was always conveyed through warmth and through prayer. I like to think that she still prays for me- even in Heaven. That she looks down at me and those around me and smiles. 

My grandad was a harsher man, but I never really saw that side of him. I was the warmth that melted away all of the icy walls he'd built around his heart. Watching the leaves change is always painful- this time of the year is always perfect for swinging. His strong voice echoes through my ears, though I have not heard him sing in a very long time. 

I miss him. 

He would be so proud of me for thinking so far into things. He would laugh at my stubbornness, claim that it was a Deskins trait, and shoot down anyone's opposing arguments. 

A barrel and a heap of love from my heart resides in Heaven this evening. Perched in the corner of a white brick house on a hill, filled with the smell of cigar smoke and pepperoni rolls. There's a swing in the backyard, and a library in the basement. Books and food and music fill the rooms, overflowing, belonging. I'd like to think that they have copies of the books that I have yet to write- praising me for work that I have not yet accomplished but will accomplish. 

Mortality is a beautiful thing, you know. Because even when it ends, it doesn't. 

Soon I will get to do something very mortal, which is get a tattoo. I know that a lot of people oppose them, for dumb reasons, but I don't. I want to get memorial tattoos of these two wonderful people. I want to always carry them with me everywhere I go. My nana will be commemorated, too. But grandad first. 

Always grandad first.