Dear Grandma,

I miss you

I think of you everyday

your loud laughter

your eye-crinkle smile

even your house

that smelled a certain way

 

the holidays are near

I want to show I care

I want to know that you’d be proud

I want to feel like you’re here

 

I want someone

to throw wrapping paper

I want someone

to squeeze me so tight it hurts

I want the fake snow-flake decals

on every single window

 

It doesn’t feel like Christmas

now that you’re gone, grandma…

it feels like a big hole is missing

that place that used to exist

the place where Christmas used to be

 

I imagine it sucked out like a giant vacuum

a void, a black hole

a darkness that feels so sad

and so angry

so empty

so empty

 

It makes me mad

that you’re not here

to see the years past

you won’t get the family bulletin

a summary of the year

of life’s triumphs

and heart-breaks

 

Instead we drag on

we trudge behind time

like lost little sheep

 

we labor to it

we are slaves to it

we worship it

but we can’t do anything

 

there’s nothing I can do about you being gone

I’d know what you’d say

you’d laugh and say something like,

“Trust God, and in him, all things are possible.

And what are you worrying about anyway?

I’m with him. And that’s as it should be…”

But it feels so sad, Grandma…

so hopeless,

without you.