A Present Love

The car was packed with my dogs panting in the backseat. We were eager to hit the road, but my heart wasn’t in it. Not completely anyway. I felt torn, guilty even. Guilty for leaving, for wanting the freedom of 1400 miles of highway, for chasing some fleeting sense of pleasure. But I stopped here, at her apartment, because I needed to. I needed to tell her I loved her, to show up one last time, if only to ease the gnawing guilt that came with knowing I was about to leave her behind.

I pulled into the parking lot, the familiar space marked “visitor” waiting for me. The neighbor ladies, always perched on the porch, were there like clockwork, their eyes shifting in my direction as if they could see straight through me, into my guilt, into my longing to be elsewhere. They nodded in acknowledgment, no doubt ready with their usual string of questions.

I let the song on the radio finish before getting out of my loaded Crosstrek, trying to shake the strange feeling that had settled in my chest. Ms. Judy, the queen of the neighbor ladies, wasted no time calling out, “You left your car on!”

I glanced back at the dogs, barking, screaming really, because I had left them. “It’s 80 degrees,” I explained, half-smiling, “didn’t want them to overheat.”

Ms. Judy’s voice followed me as I walked toward the door. “How’s she doing today?”

I paused for a second, glancing back. How was she? The truth was that Grammie wasn’t doing well, but I didn’t want to linger on that. Not today. I had a trip ahead of me, plans that felt urgent, as though time was running out. “She’s hanging in there,” I answered, brushing it off like I always did.

When I reached the door, I knocked softly, but didn’t wait. I used my key to let myself in, the dogs barking in the background as they always did when someone arrived. “It’s just me, Grammie! Don’t get up.”

Her voice came from the bedroom, weak but full of warmth. “Oh Gigi, stop barking! That’s just your Tarra. Chup, hush now. That’s your girl.” Gigi, the tiny chihuahua, ran to me and I picked her up. Her little paws tapping against my chin as she licked my cheek. “Gigi, cut it out,” Grammie laughed, her voice tired but still so concerned for me “you know Tarra doesn’t like that!”

I smiled and sat on the edge of her bed. It felt like home, like everything was as it should be. But there was a heaviness in the air, something neither of us wanted to talk about. Her surgery was coming up soon, and though we spoke of my trip and the plans we’d made for the future, I could see the fear in her eyes.

“I’m scared,” she admitted quietly, her hands trembling slightly as she looked at me. “What if I don’t make it? What if something goes wrong?”

I hesitated, brushing her fear aside like I had so many times before. “You’ll be fine, Grammie. You’ve fought through so much before, and you’ll fight through this too.” My voice was steady, but my heart felt uneasy. I was too focused on what was ahead of me to truly sit with her in that moment. I kissed her forehead, hugged her tight, and told her I loved her. “We’ve got all the time in the world,” I said as I left, more for my own comfort than hers.

But time wasn’t something we had. A year later, I’d realize how much I had missed in that moment, how much I brushed off because it’s how I was taught to love and I wasn’t ready to take responsibility for the way I loved others just yet.

Days passed after her surgery, and at first, everything seemed fine. Until it wasn’t. My sister called me on October 6th, her voice calm as she tried to comfort me. “It’s time to say goodbye,” she said. I remember the panic rising in my chest as she put the phone to Grammie’s ear. Her breathing was labored, shallow. Every breath she took felt like a countdown, ticking away what little time we had left.

“I love you, Grammie,” I whispered through the phone, my voice cracking as I fought to hold back the tears. “It’s okay to rest now. You’ve fought your whole life, and it’s okay to let go. It’s well with your soul.”

I didn’t know if she could hear me, but in my heart, I knew she understood. And just like that, she let go.

The days following her death blurred into a haze of tasks and rituals that felt surreal. We held the memorial back home in Louisiana, where family and old friends gathered under the warm sun, sharing a fish fry and stories that tried to capture the light she brought into our lives. I stood before everyone, delivering a eulogy, holding her ashes in my hands, but it felt like a dream, well, a nightmare really. I said the words, I heard the laughter as people remembered her spirit, her love for pranks and joy but nothing felt real. It wasn’t until I began packing up her apartment, moving through the familiar rooms she once filled with “shitfire,” “dadgum it", and “Jesus help me” that the finality of it all settled in. It was in the emptiness of her space, as I handled her things—the juicer she swore was worth $600 (it was maybe worth $200), the little trinkets she she couldn’t live without— that I realized she would not return to me. My best friend was gone.

The day we packed up the apartment was a beautiful sunny day with a gentle breeze rustling the colorful fall leaves, but inside me, it felt like a storm. My family arrived with empty cars, each one a vessel waiting to be filled with the remnants of my grandmother’s life. I rode with my sister, the weight of our purpose hanging in the air like a heavy fog. As we pulled into the parking lot, everyone jumped out, eager yet hesitant, ready to tackle the daunting task ahead. But I locked myself inside the car, feeling the suffocating grip of grief tighten around me. I needed a moment to breathe, to brace myself for what was to come.

Nothing made sense. I needed to see her. I stepped out of the vehicle into a world where nothing but me and the front door existed. It was all I could see, and the longer I stared at it, the weaker I felt. My head was spinning, and as I approached the door, I froze. My legs refused to carry me forward. In fact, they refused to hold me at all. The air escaped my lungs, and my body hit the ground before I could catch my breath. The door disappeared, and I cried out from the deepest part of me. The pain I had been ignoring was released into the empty space around me, and the earth had no choice but to feel the depths of my sorrow. I flooded the ground with my tears as I pleaded for relief. “I just need her to be in there,” I cried. My heart continued to break, “I shouldn’t have left her. Why did I leave? I can’t do this. We had plans. She had plans. We had time.”

For what felt like hours, I sat there, drowning in my sorrow, pleading with the universe to give me just one more moment with her. One more chance to be present, to sit with her the way I should have when she was scared.

Then, I felt it— the softest breeze brushing across my cheek, like the gentle touch of her hand. It carried with it the warmth of a thousand Grammie hugs, a feeling so familiar that peace overcame me and I swear I could hear her voice, singing softly, “It is well. It is well with my soul.”

The door reappeared in front of me, and somehow, I found the strength to stand. My heart was still breaking, but there was a calmness now, a clarity I hadn’t had before. I gently knocked, using my key to open the door, but when I stepped inside, the dogs didn’t bark. The apartment was silent.

I knocked again, my voice small and trembling. “It’s just me, Grammie.”

Nothing.

I knocked again, and again. “Grammie? It’s just me.” The silence swallowed me whole. I knocked harder, tears streaming down my face. “Grammie, please! It’s just me.” But there was no answer.

I felt someone’s hand on mine, pulling me back, but I pushed them away. “Don’t touch me!” I cried out as I ran to her bed, curling up in the empty space where she used to lie. I wanted so badly to hear her voice again, to hear her scold the dogs or laugh at one of her own jokes. But there was nothing. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere. She had let go.

It took me a years to understand that moment, to really face the regrets that had been gnawing at me. The truth was, I had been too focused on my own plans, too caught up in the future to truly be present with her in those final days. I hadn’t listened when she was afraid. I hadn’t sat with her in her fear because I was never taught and I was too afraid to face it myself.

For miles and miles, searching for something I couldn’t name. I went to mountaintops, sat under endless skies, and spent lonely nights aching to understand what it meant to love deeply, to be truly present. I realized too late that I had been chasing something outside myself when the love I needed to give was right there all along. My grandmother had been my first love, the kind of love that shaped everything else. And though I hadn’t understood it then, her letting go taught me what it meant to stay, to be still. Not in body, but in spirit.

Her legacy wasn’t in the things we packed away or the stories we told at her memorial. It was in the love she had given me. The fierce, unconditional kind that never really leaves. I hadn’t been ready to let go, but now, standing on the other side of my grief, I’m learning that it is beginning to be well with my soul.

xx