What Losing You Taught Me....

When I realized I had lost you, it felt like the rug had been pulled out from under me. At this point, I just wanted the ground below to open up and swallow me, because I didn't know who I was without you. Yet you, managed to teach me so much at two different points in my life and still do.

I was 9 when my great grandmother passed away, one week before I received my First Holy Communion. At that time, my little brain didn't fathom what had happened. In the days that followed the truth finally set in and I wasn't ready to believe it. All of 9, I refused to go and play with my friends or talk to anyone. All I wanted to do was go to school and come back home and some days not even that. This time I knew she wasn't coming back. She was my life, my guide, my friend and everything in between and in the blink of an eye she was gone. I didn't even have the chance to say goodbye, to tell her that I loved her or even to tell her that I'd always remember her. None the less, this woman left me with everything I needed to grow from there on. She already knew the questions I'd have and had left me with all the answers. Whether it was stories she told me or stories people told me of her, there was always something that resonated deep within me. Sometimes I'll be clearing out my closet and I'll find an old picture of her and for the rest of the day all I can think, about is the time we spent together. 

3 years later, I accidentally read my moms diary and found out that I had an elder brother that had passed away. That hit me like a tonne of bricks. My world as I knew it, was crumbling around me. First Big Nana and now I apparently have a brother. Sorry *had*. I was lost. I had a countless number of questions. Here too, my big Nana helped me find my way out and hearing about my brothers few days on this earth made me feel like he was right there next to me. A feeling I still feel today. He taught me that some of us are put on this planet to give meaning to someone else's life or to show someone else the way. Whether 18 years or 18 days our lives have a purpose and that purpose continues even after we no longer walk this earth. 

5 years later, the two of them continue to give me answers to my numerous questions in some way or another. No matter what I do or where I go, I know that I'll always find my way back home because I may have lost two people but I gained two angels who's names I know.

What losing them taught me is that though they might not be here physically, I could never truly lose them because I live my life everyday with them by my side. What losing them taught me is that life has to go on, but it doesn't have to be gloomy all the time. What losing them taught me is that eventually you have to move on, but you don't have to move on alone. What losing them taught me is that its okay to be happy. The most important lesson that losing them taught me is that our lives like most else on this planet is temporary, but its okay to hurt and most of all its okay to let people in again. 

Xoxo Erica