Here it is again. The anniversary of his passing. Bittersweet November. The first snowfall I can’t help but think of Konnor, he passed the day after that first snowfall of 2015. A blizzard, then a stillness.

A quiet I will never forget as I made my way to the hospital that dreadful day. The only sound was me. My sobs and my voice begging Konnor to just hold on. It wasn’t to be. I know he tried. But his body wouldn’t allow him to stay.

Tragic memories are never forgotten. Ingrained forever in our minds, changing us. Wounding, leaving us scarred.

My family and I are in pieces. I won’t fool myself and say it is only his passing that brought us to this point. Rather I think I simply became too lost to do anything about it. I was one person and there was too many.

I wanted to move into these later years with my family and grandchildren surrounding me in love. I find myself often lost in thought trying to figure out where things went wrong.

My home surrounded by pictures of smiling grandchildren is now slowly being replaced. Photographs now of flowers and other images to help me to heal. Those smiling faces that I can no longer see are not a constant painful reminder. A reminder that I am not allowed to see them. My life now in pieces.

I am not going to focus my precious energy on the broken pieces or try to force them back together but simply find peace with what is. Realize I have no control over what happens next. Stop trying to figure out how the pieces fell apart. Because at this point, it changes nothing.

In not knowing what tomorrow may bring, I am learning that although things are so very different from how I wanted them to be, they are how some members of my family want it to be. Peace and happiness are what I have been wanting for my family, if this is what their happiness is, a life separated from one another, so be it. They have their peace although we are now fragmented.

The things that have happened within myself and my family in the three years since Konnor’s death has shaped me into who I am now. Those within as well as outside my family that cared about me have understood my suffering, my memory lapses, my behavioral changes and everything that goes along with the tragedy of the loss of that beautiful boy.

Those that can’t, have given up on me. They may have never understood me or loss or ever read my blog to get a glimpse inside my thoughts, the thoughts of this distraught grandmother. A grandmother who loved so deeply and cannot forget that child. I thought this was something to be proud of.

Acceptance of the changes within my family must happen just as I had to accept that Konnor was gone. All the crying, all the denying in the world did not change a thing. It couldn’t bring him back. Maybe that was my biggest problem. I just couldn’t believe it. I was in shock for so long and grief changed me.

Did grief shatter our family into pieces? Fuck. I carry so much guilt over other things, I refuse to feel guilty for my grief. That is just too much of a burden to bear.

Any relationship where love feeds your soul with so much joy whether it is with your own children or grandchildren or a spouse, then is devastated to the heart’s core by a sudden death is life shattering. There is no way around it.

I love my kids. I will always carry a piece of them within me. If they are happy this is all that truly matters. Even though this happiness may mean a life without me in it. I can try to find some peace within myself and somehow mend what is broken within me. Maybe someday they will understand, I did the best I could.

Konnor, I still think about you. All the time. Only now there isn’t so much sadness behind it. I can smile now when I think about you. Your laugh, your clumsiness. I think about you, how special you were. How lucky I really am to have had you in my life. I cry less but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss you. I miss you so very much.

I always will.

Rest In Peace my sweet Grandson. I love you still.