The Grateful Outweighs the Painful

“When someone you love dies, and you're not expecting it, you don't lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time—the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes—when there's a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she's gone, forever—there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” 
~John Irving, A Prayer for Owen Meany

Sometimes it hits me like a brick wall.  That feeling in the pit of my stomach.   The one that causes tears to well up in my eyes.  Whether it has been 1 year or 10, it can sneak up on me out of nowhere.  Sometimes it's a certain cologne, sometimes a glass of orange juice, and sometimes it's nothing specific at all.  But it comes.  The realization that they are gone. The reminder that I'll never again hear their voices on this earth.  The knowledge that I can't ask them one more question, or hear one more laugh, or get one more hug.  And it's painful.

But, then, a second feeling inevitably floods in. The one of gratefulness.  That they lived.  That I got a chance to love them.  They they had an impact on my life.  And that if I'm doing anything right, some little piece of them shows through me.

The hero of an ag teacher, the best grandma you could imagine, the little blonde headed kid. My first valentine, my childhood friends, my brother's best friend. Uncle David, my friend's sweet brother, Santa with the southern accent.  The girl with the swagger and pink boots. 

And, in the end, the grateful outweighs the painful.  Every time.