Some pills are easier to swallow than others!!

Hey Babe,

Well, I think I’m at the stage where I’ve turned off all emotions, and I've been keeping busy and distracted by planning my grandma’s funeral, so I don’t have time to feel anything until I can get through my grandmother's funeral services.  As you know, my family shows no emotions or any signs of weakness under any circumstances. Remember, it’s survival of the fittest in my family, and any signs of weakness will be used against you!! (Okay, it’s not that bad, but I do have to be on guard to deal with the baby auntie since she has crosshairs on my back!!)  But whenever I go home, it’s really hard to feel anything since I have to compartmentalize and be “stoically strong” to survive my family.

Anyways, I’ve also thought my grandma’s passing would be completely devastating and that I wouldn’t be able to get over it.  That losing my grandmother would be the hardest thing I will ever have to endure.  She’s more than just a grandmother to me, she’s like my mom!  She lives with my parents, and she’s raised me since I was born. She even risked her life by picking what I call “baby bananas” (they’re miniature bananas that grows in Southeast Asia) in her own fields during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, so I wouldn’t starve since my mom couldn’t produce enough milk to breastfeed me (yup, starvation does make it hard to produce sufficient milk to breastfeed your newborn child when you can barely sustain yourself!!  Sometimes, I wonder how my mom even had enough nutrients and nourishments to sustain the pregnancy to even birth me during the war and starvation my family endured under the Khmer Rouge regime.)  If she got caught, my grandma would have been killed by the Khmer Rouge soldiers. Honestly, my family and I were lucky to even be alive with all the craziness and genocide that was going on during that time. At the end of First They Killed My Father, which is a good depiction of the hardship and trauma my family went through during the “Killing Fields” under the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, there was a scene where a woman gives birth to a baby, and I said out loud, “Who the heck has a baby during this turmoil and craziness!!”  Then I realized, “Oh crap!! My parents did!!" I was literally one of the many newborn babies from that scene.
 
But now, after my grandma passed, it just feels bittersweet.  Knowing that she will no longer suffer and be in pain, makes my heart feel light.  But whenever I feel sadness, I can’t tell if I’m sad and grieving for her or if I’m sad because I’m going through this grief process and journey alone, without you by my side supporting me. Sometimes, I feel like I’ve been cheated since I can’t feel the depth of my pain and grief for my grandma since this is such an easier pill to swallow than than my 49 year old husband’s untimely and unnatural death.  

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