moment interrupted

my gran died yesterday. i don't really know what to say about it. i keep acting like everything is fine...i doesn't feel fine.
gran lived with us for a few years, and it wasn't easy. i know i loved my grandmother, but i can't really say that i liked her all that much. i don't think i ever really understood her. she had a hard life: her father was imprisoned, she had to work from a young age, she never finished school, she and her family were the pariahs in their little texas town, her husband died when her children were quite young, she had to wash other people's clothes for years. their dirt became pennies in her pocket. her life was all about dirt: her's and everyone else's. all of this stuff is so foreign to my simple, charmed life. i've never known the heartache of the loss she experienced.

about a month ago on my 30th birthday she sent me a card with a note and some money. she always sent money. never forgot even one of my birthdays. in her note, she apologized to me for things she had done to hurt me while she had lived with us, and before. it was touching. it was genuine. it was unexpected. so, i wrote her a note to let her know how much i loved her, that i forgave her, and that i wanted to see her in heaven someday. we tried so many times to give her the gospel, and we just didn't know if she ever understood it...

i never sent it.
it's still sitting on my dresser with a stupid little smiley face on it to mock me.
i never sent it.
she doesn't even know i forgave her. i couldn't even give her that one last pleasure. she had such an awful life, and she never even knew i forgave her. i wanted to give her the gospel one last time, and tell her i forgave her.
i never sent it.

you know in the play "our town" how emily realizes all the things she didn't notice while she was alive? how she missed out living every moment? "do humans ever realize life while they live it? every, every minute?" i love this play. i yell it from the rooftops. i shout it everywhere i go. you know what: i failed. i failed when it mattered most! i couldn't even do the big thing. the easy thing.

this is where i am:
i will go to her funeral.
i will mourn with everyone there.
i will grieve.
i will grieve my loss.
i will grieve her's.

but right now i have to do my laundry (this is hope).