AJayne's Lemon Tree

I had never really lost somebody I was truly close with until recently. A couple of years ago my great grandmother died, but I wasn’t very close with her. She didn’t really remember who I was for the last couple of years of her life. Most times I saw her she would just call me “Little Girl”. When she passed, it was hard for a little while, but eventually I moved on. It’s not that I didn’t care aboout her, it just felt like I didn’t know her enough to really have a period of grieving, just your average level of sadness.

Living on a farm. I understand animal loss. I’ve lost dogs, cats, rabbits, goats, chickens, geese, etc. what I didn’t understand however, was human grief. I had seen it in movies, heard it in music, read it in books, but never really experienced it, until Monday, January 19, 2025. when my aunt passed away. At the time that I am writing this, I still haven’t been able to say the words out loud. in fact, this is the first time I have even written it. I haven’t even talked to my friends about it. They have no idea.

I don’t really know how to explain my reasoning for not saying it to anyone. I feel like part of the reason is because that will cause me to have to admit it to myself that she’s gone, but I also think that it’s because I feel like it’s not my place to feel so much grief at the moment.

She had two sons. My cousins. We grew up more like siblings, especially since the younger of the two is only nine months older than me. We go to school together now, but he hasn’t come to school all week. I haven’t talked to him about it because it feels like it will just make it worse.

I didn’t take a day off. She passed away during finals week, so I felt like I couldn’t afford to miss school. I spent the week with a smile plastered on my face, acting like nothing happened, trying to just keep myself distracted. If they didn’t see that anything was wrong, nobody would ask about it. I’d wait until I got home to cry.

When my parents came into my room to tell me she was gone, I just sat there. I felt numb but I also felt like screaming. I spent that day just angry. I didn’t know what to do. I don’t know why anger was the first thing I felt. Maybe it’s I was mad at myself for not getting to say goodbye. Or maybe I was mad at myself for never asking me how I was handling things after she got sick. It was always just dumping everything on me and then saying, “don’t tell your cousins” Or “they’re probably going to be a little more annoying because they don’t know how to handle this, so be gracious”. But when I felt that same way, my parents would shoe me off and tell me to go away. It wasn’t until a week before she passed when I brought up the fact that they had never once asked me, that I was met with the excuse of “you’re always so strong and stoic, so I didn’t notice how it was affecting you.” But that’s a story for another day.

After the anger finally faded, I was just overcome with a wave of anxiety. It felt like I was suffocating. I just couldn’t catch my breath or sleep. I didn’t understand what I was feeling or why. Literally anything and everything would trigger tears. A random song, a movie, something somebody was saying, etc.

As the week went on, things started to fade. I still cried, but much less. I was happier, but it felt wrong. It felt illegal to be happy. I kept telling myself that I shouldn’t be smiling. My aunt just died, and I’m at school laughing and smiling with my friends while my cousin hasn’t been at school all week because he just lost his mom. My mom was coming home crying almost every day and I was just hiding in my room, watching movies and texting my friends, acting like nothing had happened.

I’m starting to understand that maybe this is how I grieve. That not all grief looks the same and not all grief is linear. It can all hit at once, or it can hit you when you least expect it. It can get worse as time goes on, or it can get better.

During this period of my life, I have learned that no matter how prone to oversharing I am, sometimes there are things that I genuinely can’t bring myself to talk about or have a select few people that I want to talk to about it. It’s something that feels like people won’t understand, since everyone processes things differently and I hadn’t really talked about her being sick with anybody. But maybe that lack of understanding is what I need. I don’t want somebody to say that they can relate, or they understand how I’m feeling. I just want people that will listen and just be there for me. Sometimes I think that’s something we all need.