4/8/25:
I can’t sleep again. I feel breathless like I’m reaching for something, and I don’t even know what. It’s so much easier to let myself fall. It’s freeing to let myself lose my mind. It takes tenacity to get better. Some days, like today, It’s harder to stay better. On days like today, I question everything around me. Everything feels hazy. I feel so guilty for feeling grief. I feel like I could’ve been a better granddaughter. I hope she knows how much I love her. Not loved, love. She treated me as a muse. To her, I was beautiful enough to spend hours painting and perfecting on a canvas. When I was in Colorado last, I saw what I can assume was the last painting she was working on. It was me and my childhood dog. She had sketched it out with so much detail and talent. For the first time ever, a drawing brought me to tears. It’s easy to overlook mundane aspects of someone’s life like that until they’re gone. My essence to her was kept on a canvas. I wish she knew how much those paintings meant to me. I wish I knew how much they meant to me. Reflecting is hard. Grief is hard. Grief is the universal language. Everyone speaks it; everyone comprehends the weight of its presence. I think I feel the most guilt about the photo in my bathroom.
When we moved into this home, my parents hung a painting she made in my bathroom of me looking at my belly button. I hated it. I aged and didn’t see the childlike innocence and curiosity the painting flawlessly captured. I got insecure, I got mean, I wanted it gone. How ignorant I was to hate a painting someone made for me. I hope she doesn’t know about that. I don’t know if there’s a god but for her, I hope there is. She was pure and unlucky. She was dealt a shitty hand, and she never let me see that. When I was a kid, she always sat in her blue chair in the living room. I would take her wheelchair around the house. I thought it was the coolest thing ever to use. I hope that brought her solace. Ignorance really is bliss. I wonder if she brought my blanket to the hospice. I hope it ameliorated the situation if she did. I hope she can rest. I hope she is sprinting into heaven. I hope she wakes up in heaven and feels a full morning stretch, realizing she is no longer in pain. I hope she knew it was okay to let go. I will always lionize my grandmother. It is so cliche to wish you could change what you never did and write in the margins moments you wish you could’ve had. If I could have it that way, our story would be fully annotated with countless notes, stories, and write-ins. But I will take my blank copy of our story with me. I will hold it close to my chest and bring it everywhere I go. I know if she could, she would tell me our story was good enough, that I was good enough. She was as selfless as she could be despite every hardship she faced. I hope to possess half the tenacity she had in this lifetime. I will carry her story with me and find her in the places I know she will be. I will find her in artwork, I will find her in the flowers sprouting in the ground, I will find her painting the sky, showing everyone how to make a real sunset. I hope to see her again when the time is right.
Sadie's Solace Inked 