Mociute

This is my grandmother, Jorune. Today is her birthday. She passed about 9 months ago. Su Gimimo Diena, Mociute.

Her death hit me quite hard and I still don’t think I have fully processed it.

I got to spend 8 months living with her after grandpa passed. It was both a blessing and a challenging time in my life, that was the last time we were together.

I’m grateful to have had that time together and at the same time I wish I could have stayed softer, less reactive, kinder and more patient with her. It was a very testing time..both of us grieving, winter time, the pandemic hitting, being stranded for much longer than I had planned, triggers from my childhood.

My “good girl” archetype finally starting to naturally peel away. I start to rebel. Will I still be loved if I’m not the pleasant, helpful, agreeable girl I have been?

I start doing less, just the minimum to help out, I’m moody, I take my long walks in silence everyday, insomnia, barely any sunlight, so many dark thoughts, I keep walking. I start doing cold plunges in the lake, that helps a little. The winter retreats and the plants start waking up again. Days start getting longer again, light at the end of the tunnel.

This long time spent with my own shadows pushes me to book my first Ayahuasca retreat shortly after, I feel ready to face whatever I need to to liberate myself from my own miserable construct.

I am sorry to have struggled to move past my own issues in these last times we spent together.
Grandma has a seizure some time after I go back to the states, she’s paralyzed and gets hospitalized, where she will spend the last year of her life.  I don’t fly to visit. I barely call.

Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. Guilt. My heart hurts.

I’m still working through this heaviness in my chest and learning to love the wholeness of who I am - the parts I am not proud of too. Though this heaviness lingers when I think of my grandma, there is so much light, love and joy that fills me when I think of her.

My grandmother stayed soft even after the horrendous curve balls that life threw her as a very small girl. This is one of my favorite photos of her, she is so happy on vacation when her family was still all together.

This is one of my favorite photos of her, she is so happy on vacation when her family was still all together.

Her older brother died around the age of 5 from a misdiagnosis, he had pneumonia that was not treated.  She dedicated her whole life to become a pediatrician and never had a child die throughout her whole career.

During the Soviet occupation in Lithuania when all the intelligentsia were being wiped out, she witnessed her father taken away at gunpoint from his office when she was 5. She later found a photo of his starved face in a record book of a labor camp..the last she saw of him

Her heart health was weak..of course it would be, carrying so much unreleased trauma through time. I wish I could have loved her more. Especially when she needed it most in the end of her life. And at the same time I know that as her granddaughter, I brought a lot of joy to her through my life.

Every time I see a small bird, a little chick, kitten or a flower, I think of her. She was incredibly soft and gentle, she loved feeding and observing the birds at our countryside home. She picked wild flowers and dried them to make so many beautiful flower paintings. Even her voice, a very soft and slightly high pitched sound, matched her vibration.

Her cooking was always my most sought-after comfort food, many times heading to her house straight from the airport to be spoiled with her home-made crepes she served with a creamy butter and sour cream sauce. Still my favorite meal to this day.

My memory of her is light, we have shared so many moments together that I hold very dear to me.  She was funny too. Zirniai byra.

Feeling a lot of love and healing today,  gratitude for the biggest teacher that is death.

See my vlog about my Grandmother here.