This year marks the 5th anniversary of the passing of the person I considered my sunshine, my great
grandmother, Helen Otis. I can only assume people rarely get to know their great grandparents the way I got to know my great grandmother and I am so thankful she was part of my life for as long as she was. Our times together are forever etched in my memories and I look to them in dark times, which these days feels inescapable. She scolded me sometimes for being a knucklehead but it didn't matter because 1. most likely I deserved it and 2. I knew she loved me. No judgement or yelling, just love. The one time she expressed disappointment in me is something that has hurt me for ages and if I could take it back, I would've. When she passed, I told myself I would go on to be a better man, a man she would be proud of but I'm sad to say that I don't think I am.
I think I miss someone having faith in me or at least the way she had faith in me. I just go day to day, feeling gray, feeling like there's no one to reach out to the way I could her. Nothing proved this more than the holiday season of 2019, when I am pretty sure I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, missing her. I was in so much pain, mentally, and I never felt so invisible (at first, after a while, co-workers began noticing how out of it I looked). I wanted to reach out to her because I visited her every Christmas eve but I knew I couldn't. All I can say is I have no fucking idea how I got through it all. Maybe she was there to hold my hand and I didn't know it.
I'm a little relieved that she doesn't have to deal with the chaos that has been 2020. If she were, I would've gotten into a fistfight with Covid-19 just to keep her safe.
I miss you, my sunshine...🌅
