Proof that grief only ever sits just below the surface. I was looking through my mom's stuff for something completely unrelated to these two items, but when I opened the little white box and found the item on the right inside, it completely wrecked me. My mom collected nativity scenes, and she purchased this votive holder on the right when she, my best friend Valerie, and I went to the Carmel Christkindlmarkt on December 13, 2019. Just under 7 months later, we lost her to acute myeloid leukemia.
The item on the right belonged to my dad for as long as I can remember. It originally had a little red heart on its chest, and it was affectionately named "Marshmallow Bear." My dad was a big guy, but he had a soft heart and was told he had a marshmallow heart. That marshmallow heart stopped beating on December 21, 2007.
Both of them have been gone for a while now, but every so often something like this hits out of nowhere, and the pain of losing them, of knowing I can't call my mom ever again, of knowing I can't spend an evening watching Food Network with my dad ever again, of not hearing their voices ever again wells up and overtakes me. Today I choose to let myself grieve again.
I love you, Mom and Dad.
"What is grief, if not love persevering?" - Vision (Marvel's Wandavision)
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