Through the Fog

Tag: grandma

  • Grandparents Are the Foundation

    Grandparents are the foundation —

    the quiet strength beneath generations.

    They are the hands that held the family together,

    the voices that carried stories through time,

    the hearts that gave love without asking for anything in return.

    They teach us patience by living it.

    They show us resilience not through words,

    but through the way they kept going

    even when life gave them reasons not to.

    When I think of my grandparents,

    I think of steady hands, warm kitchens,

    and a kind of love that didn’t need to be spoken.

    It was in the way they looked at you when you walked through the door,

    in the meals they made without asking what you wanted,

    in the way they remembered the small things you forgot to say.

    They built a world for us —

    brick by brick, sacrifice by sacrifice.

    And even now, when some of them are gone,

    I still feel their presence in the quiet moments.

    In the smell of coffee at dawn.

    In the songs that remind me of home.

    In the parts of me that still believe love can last forever.

    Grandparents are the foundation —

    of our stories, our strength, our becoming.

    And no matter how far we go,

    a piece of us will always be built from them.

  • The Bonds That Last

    Carrying a strong bond with the people I grew up with is one of the great things in my life—but sometimes it feels like a double-edged blade. They knew me before the chaos, before the bottles, before the nights I couldn’t crawl out of. They remember a version of me I can barely picture anymore. And standing beside them, I feel the weight of who I’ve lost.

    There’s something both comforting and painful about people who’ve seen you from the beginning. They carry memories of me laughing without effort, dreaming without limits. When they look at me now, I wonder if they notice the cracks, or if they pretend not to. I can’t hide from them completely—they know too much. But I also can’t always let them all the way in, because the shame clings too tightly.

    Being with them is like touching the surface of another life, one I can’t fully step back into. The laughter still comes, but it feels borrowed. The warmth is there, but it flickers. These bonds keep me tethered, yet sometimes they also remind me how far I’ve drifted from the shore we all started on together.

    And maybe that’s why I cling to them so hard—because even when I feel like a ghost of myself, they’re proof that I was once alive. They are the mirror that shows me not just who I am, but who I used to be. And some days, that’s harder to face than the loneliness itself.

  • If You Loved Me, Why’d You Leave Me

    Dear you,

    If you loved me, why’d you leave me?

    I know it isn’t fair to ask that of someone who’s gone, but the question sits in my chest like a stone. You didn’t walk out, you didn’t turn your back, you died — but all my heart can feel is that you left. And I’m still here, reaching into empty air.

    I keep replaying our last moments, the sound of your voice, the way you looked at me. I tell myself you didn’t choose this, that death came like a thief and took you without asking. But some nights, in the dark, the anger rises anyway. You loved me. You knew I still needed you. So why am I here alone?

    Everything you touched still hums with your absence. The places we went feel hollow. The air feels heavier. People tell me time will soften it, that grief fades, that love doesn’t end just because someone dies. But they don’t see me lying awake at night, whispering your name into the dark, asking the same question over and over: if you loved me, why’d you leave me?

    Maybe you didn’t have a choice. Maybe your leaving wasn’t a decision but a final surrender your body made without your permission. Maybe love can’t hold someone here when the weight gets too heavy. I tell myself that, and some days it helps. Other days it doesn’t.

    I wish you could see me now. I wish you could tell me what to do with all the pieces you left behind. I wish you could tell me how to live without you. But you can’t. So I’m left with this letter, and the silence after it.

    I still love you. I still feel you. And even though you left, I’m still here.

    Always,

    Me

  • When the Anchor Breaks

    My grandmother was more than family. She was a presence, a force that shaped the person I became. She had a way of anchoring me when the rest of the world felt like it was pulling me apart. She didn’t speak in grand lessons, but in small truths — truths I didn’t always listen to at the time, but that haunt me now.

    There was a steadiness in her, the kind of steadiness I never managed to carry in myself. When I close my eyes, I can still see her hands — worn, tired, but sure. They could comfort, they could scold, they could hold on when everything else slipped away.

    And now, she’s gone.

    The absence is a hollow I can’t seem to fill. People say memories should comfort you, but sometimes they feel like salt in a wound. I don’t want echoes. I want her voice. I don’t want shadows. I want her sitting across from me, reminding me that I am not as lost as I think I am.

    Grief isn’t soft. It’s not gentle. It claws at me in the quiet hours, in the moments when I think I’m fine, only to drag me back under. I tell myself she would want me to keep going, but the truth is, some days I don’t know how.

    She was the light I didn’t deserve, and now I walk in the dark without her.

    And the cruelest part?

    The world keeps spinning, while mine stopped the day she left.