This time, I didn't cry

Grief and healing and dealing a damn good hand to myself.

My family was playing a card game last week and I was the dealer. I gave out all the cards and then when it came time to pick them up and call the suit we would all play, I had the hand of all hands and won the game.

My sister looked at me and said, “You dealt yourself that hand? Curious.”

We all used to joke when playing cards at my Grandmother’s house that when you dealt yourself a delicious hand, you must be cheating somehow. Wink wink, nudge nudge. ‘Twas intermixed in all the across the card table sh*t talking you would come to expect and learn how to do when growing up seated next to your Grandmother and across from your goofball Uncle in the heart of the Midwest in America.

I looked at my sister and responded, “listen, when you have done as much healing as I have, you deal yourself the best hands as soon and as much as you can”.

And her friend sitting next to her did a wonderful “Preach” and elbowed my sister in the ribs. I rarely receive approval from Gen Z so that was fun.

I believe that, you know. When you choose to heal, like really really dig deep and get uncomfortable, you deal yourself that good good because you finally recognized that you are ready, you are worthy and damn if you are right on time….time and time again.

After I placed the last card, I got up from the card table and did a weird mix of intrinsic dance and what looked like synchronized swimming out of water. Just enough weird to remove the approval ‘preach’ from my gen Z sister and her friend.

There is so much magic seated at a card table. More, I thought to myself and then told my husband the next day on morning bike ride we stole away while the kids had breakfast with their grandparents.

Reminiscing about card tables of the past, we biked and talked, peddled and mind meddled, as we do. Chris and I are deep in spiritual conversations and somehow pedaled our way right onto a conversations about souls and frequencies when alive and what happens when no longer alive. I fell in love with Chris for his willingness to go deeper way below the surface level conversations in life and we have been having them since we met at age 18 and they have only gone deeper as we have grown as individuals and together.

On this particular ride, I spoke to him about my experience standing next to my beloved Grandmother when she took her last breath. How it felt, what happened in the room, the moment she chose to exit and when I couldn’t find my breath and had to run down to her lake to breathe and cry the saddest cry. How I felt a tether had been snapped and for a while I kept asking, ‘what do I do with all this space now?’.

And when I was telling Chris this story, for the first time ever, I didn’t cry. I was not swallowed whole by my grief when talking about my grandmother. I was able to stay in the conversation, on the bike, in the memory and the re-telling.

I smiled and told him, “hey did you see that? I didn’t cry this time talking about my Grandmother. I feel really proud of myself.”

He looked at me puzzled and told me I didn’t have to be proud.

And I said, yes I did and I am. Because when you are swallowed whole by grief, you lose your footing for a while. You are literally in the belly of that beast waiting for the water to rise and perhaps to be shot out of the blowhole or digested whole and shit out. And it is okay. It is okay.

But on that day, I didn’t cry. And I smiled and remembered my Grandmother and told about her and stayed in reality. And goodness, it felt incredible. Because I know there is nothing wrong with crying, nothing at all. I do it all the time.

However, I also know that when I can breathe and stay without being swept off the shores of reality, I have gone through the belly of the beast and got shit back out and I can tell about it.

And I can tell about her.

And I can deal myself another beautiful hand.

And dance.