Dear [Redacted],
I was really glad to see her too. Growing up, even with her living in Bangor, we spent so much time together that those visits shaped the way I remember my childhood. There’s always been a kind of anticipation in me before seeing her//almost a nervousness// but it disappears instantly once we’re together. It’s more like a reminder of how much she has always meant to me, and how much presence she carries when she walks into a room.
I think often about the way certain traits run through family, and how they make their way into us without our even realizing. She, my father, and my cousin Jenn Annet all shared that same sensitivity, where emotions could surface so quickly and fully//tears rising in an instant at a memory, a story, or even just a small gesture. As a child I noticed it, and I think I carry some of it myself, though for me it comes less as release and more as weight. The emotions of others can feel overwhelming to me, almost too heavy to hold at times. That’s why funerals have never been the right setting for me. I don’t find what I need in the collective weight of grief. Instead, I’ve learned I need my own space, my own time, where I can say goodbye in a way that feels truer and more honest.
Losing my father and my Nana Gig taught me this in a hard but lasting way. Their passing didn’t weaken the bonds I had with them, and it certainly didn’t erase the parts of them that remain alive in me. If anything, the opposite happened//the bond became clearer, sharper, more undeniable. Death changed the form of our connection, but it didn’t end it. I think that’s why “passing” feels like the right word. It isn’t only an ending. It carries the sense that what mattered most about them is carried forward-through memory, through the way they shaped me, through the ways I live with them still.
So when I get even a brief moment like the one we shared the yesterday, it means more than I can easily say. It reminds me that these connections don’t belong to the past alone//they live with us, through us, in every moment we choose to honor them. And some people, like her, like my father, like my Nana, hold a place so central that their presence//even for just a moment—feels like carrying a whole lifetime forward with them.
∆Remember Us∆ 