Loss is always hard to deal with. Keep in mind that 'being strong' is something of a front. Sure, the demands of life do not stop (for long), and you must continue to deal with things as they come. However, in my own experience, a lot of extra stress and strain builds up from trying to be strong during a time when it's natural to have moments of weakness.
We often assume being 'strong' means refusing to display emotion or to acknowledge things have changed. The fact is, something very important has changed, and it will take time to process that change and adjust. It isn't about 'being strong' or 'being weak.'
My grandmother grew up in a house with a dirt floor and you could see daylight through parts of the walls. For as long as I was alive, she had a garden out in their back yard (different house, mind you). I remember digging potatoes and stashing them in a dark portion of a shed out back. We would sit, my cousins and I, out on the back porch and shuck corn. There was a picnic table that sat out there for as long as I was alive and a small hill we would use as a 'home plate' for improvised games of baseball. There was a chicken coop far toward the back of the property and we would collect eggs from it to use for breakfast, occasionally.
They always had a lot of dogs, too. There was, for a long time as a kid, a fenced in portion of the yard that a lot of the chow hounds were kept in. It connected to the old chicken coop, where a very large dog of one of my uncle's was kept, since he was known for being very aggressive and biting people. There was a plum tree just beyond that fenced in portion, toward the end of the property, though opposite of the chicken coop.
Mom and Dad were married in that yard. I don't know if the photo albums survived... I'd have to try and dig them back up, but the ceremony was held just in front of the path that went by the garden.
Grandma used to take us out fishing by the cabin my uncle owned by the bourbeuse river. We'd climb down the river bank and fish from a nearby gravel bar or wade up/down the river. The way the gravel bar built up created a swift running current through a narrow section and a fallen tree stood as a sort of promise to get beat all to hell if you lost your footing and fell into it.
My great grandmother... well, I only ever saw one, my maternal grandfather's mother. Great Grandma Stout... never really got to know her. She was rarely ever around since she lived up in the city, and even when I was a kid, she was not really ambulatory and needed help getting around.
Just sharing some of my fond memories of someone who I lost a while back. She passed away about ten years ago, so it's been long enough that the memories don't hurt as much as they used to. I've learned to look at them as more like something I'd like to be able to pass on to my kids/grand kids... my kids will never know their grandparents... at least from my side of the family. So, it would be nice to be able to do awesome things for my kids and then spoil my grandkids as payback for the hell my kids put me and my hypothetical wife through.
