essay about death of grandmother

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Here’s to the grandmothers who have shaped generations of women and mothers

AlessandroBiascioli/Shutterstock

In light of the death of Queen Elizabeth II, I am reminded of the passing of my own grandmother and the importance of grandmothers all across the globe.

By Mariah Maddox September 12, 2022

The loss of a grandmother is never an easy one to deal with. In light of the death of Queen Elizabeth II , I am reminded of the passing of my own grandmother and the importance of grandmothers all across the globe. 

In many ways, I still have not found rest in the fact that my grandmother is gone—and for people who have lost their grandmothers, I’m sure you can relate.

Related: How to deal with loss of grandmother

I saw how deeply many across the world began to mourn when Queen Elizabeth II passed away—and in a way, it resurfaced the ache of the loss of my own grandmother that I have been trying to avoid for so long.

The world seemingly stops for just a moment when the matriarch of our family passes. And when it starts to move again, it never orbits the same.

It’s as if I have tried and tried to regain my footing after her loss. Yet the grief fills and surrounds me —and I have never been the same. The world has never been the same.

Because grandmothers are the anchors of families. They are the ones who hold everything together, who remind us of the names that we carry and of where we come from.

Grandmothers are the ones who make us draw near to our lineage and find glory in the blood that runs through our veins. They keep family at the center of their lives—and their hearts—and stand true to the precious and cherished bonds of kin. 

Related: I love seeing my child develop personal relationships with family members

The love that grandmothers hold is deeper and fuller than anything we have ever known—and we are drawn into their orbit of love, laughter and light.

So when we lose a grandmother, it feels like we lose a monumental piece of ourselves. The world seemingly stops for just a moment when the matriarch of our family passes. And when it starts to move again, it never orbits the same.

But the reassuring and warming thing for me is that I get to honor my grandmother in living the wisdom she so often instilled in me. In her days on this Earth, she lived a full and meaningful life.

Related: Our kids have the best Nana and Grandma in the world—thank you

Every day I am reminded of her embrace, of her grace and her beauty and her poise.

I am reminded of how her aura warmed every person that she came in contact with and how her presence commanded every space that she walked into. 

She walked the path before us—my mother, my aunts, my sisters, me—and she reached back to guide us on our individual journeys. In many ways, her spirit still guides us.

Even though their passings bring an unbearable burden of grief, we now have the baton to carry.

And I know that one day, I want to be that woman. The matriarch of my family. The woman who my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren come to seek wisdom from. The woman who reminds them of their lineage, of their purpose. 

One day, I will be that woman, and I am sure of it because my grandmother taught me so many valuable things. And though I have spent many days in mourning since her passing, I am reminded of the morning she carried all the days of her life. Those recollections ease my weeping heart in times like these and remind me that there is still work to be done. Now a deeper purpose is awaiting me—and that is to carry on the legacy that my grandmother sowed into all the women that she raised.

Related: Being a grandmother is the greatest joy of my life

So if you are reading this, take a moment to honor your grandmother—living or passed away. Honor the grandmothers who gave us our heritage. Honor the grandmothers who sacrificed so that we could be the women we are today. Honor the grandmothers who walked the path before us. Honor the grandmothers who are the glue that binds us all together.

A coworker of mine mentioned the loss of a grandmother as the sentiment of a loss of generations of elders, of a moving up of generations. And I find that sentiment to be achingly true, but also reassuring.

Because grandmothers have shaped generations of women and mothers—and even though their passings bring an unbearable burden of grief, we now have the baton to carry.

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Losing a grandmother brings questions about grief, and why we feel what we feel

The task, experts said, is figuring out how best to carry on, while still honoring the person who’s no longer with us.

• Jacob Smollen

Jacob Smollen as a kid with his grandmother, Mindy Smollen. (Courtesy of Jacob Smollen)

This story is from The Pulse , a weekly health and science podcast.

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My grandmother, Mindy Smollen, lived a long, full life, and although her death itself was sudden, it was not entirely shocking. But having anyone you love pass away is hard. I thought about her often at night, or during the school day, and I often thought back on conversations we had had.

My grandma and I used to spend a lot of time talking about travel and art. She was really into art, so the topic came naturally for her — not so much for me. She also loved to travel, mostly to France. She loved everything about it: the language, the culture, and the food.

During the months following my grandmother’s death, I found myself wishing I had something of hers. My grandmother loved rabbits, and she sometimes gave little rabbit sculptures as gifts to family members. It seemed like everyone had one but me. Then, I found out that my sister had a handwritten letter from my grandma, only adding to my disappointment.

Why did I feel that way? And why was I searching my memories for bits and pieces of our conversations?

I decided to reach out to psychologist Charles Jacob to find out more about the grieving process.

“The task at hand is to remember and honor their memory in such a way that it does not cause us pain, but brings us some amount of comfort,” Jacob said. “Especially for folks who are grieving initially, there can be something bittersweet about the recollections of people who are lost.”

I also spoke with Jacob about my feelings of jealousy over not having a letter or anything tangible from my grandmother.

“I can see how that would cause some amount of vexation,” he said. “But I have to imagine there are a lot of different ways to remember and still feel connected to her.”

Grief is a complicated process, Jacob said, and he cited his experience with his father’s death a few years earlier.

“When we’re faced with loss, the world just keeps moving and changing around us,” he said. “The task at hand is finding a way back to some level of functioning, like, I now have to find a way to live without my father — not forget him — but also pay my taxes and brush my teeth, because those things don’t stop.”

Jacob talked about a psychologist, J. William Worden, who created a framework that says that in the wake of a loss, we try to complete four tasks. The first is to accept the reality of the loss. The second is to experience the pain of grief and process it. The third is to adjust to an environment without the person who has passed away, and the fourth is to find an enduring connection with the deceased in the midst of embarking on a new life.

This framework made a lot of sense to me and how I experienced my grandmother’s death. I remember feeling sad about it for a while and just ruminating on that. Then, weeks later, her absence hit me anew, when we visited my grandpa for the first time after her death. Examining my thoughts and actions through Worden’s lens helped me understand that, in going through my memories, I was looking for an enduring connection. I was searching for what I was going to carry on from my grandmother.

Jacob also told me about some of the many ways people cope with loss. Often, he said, the most important one is just time.

“The reality is that most states of being are not sustainable long term. Eventually, we just start trending back to normal,” he said. “The trick is getting over the pain and then deriving meaning from all of it that doesn’t leave us feeling completely hopeless.”

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In the meantime, Jacob recommends talking to friends and telling stories, and, if you need to, cry. I found each of these things helpful after my grandmother passed away.

Around the time my grandmother died, a very close friend of mine lost his grandfather. At the time, I was having trouble expressing my feelings about my grandmother’s loss to my family, and so having an “outsider” to talk to, particularly one who was going through such a similar experience, was really helpful.

Finding comfort in strangers

Before I lost my grandmother, the topic of death or grief really didn’t come up much. It seems as if most people avoid it if possible. However, there is a push by some to make death and grief more of a normal dinner table conversation topic. For example, I found out about death cafes, events in which strangers meet to talk about dying over food and drinks.

I wanted to learn more about these events and the people who attend them, so I reached out to Brian Long, a death cafe facilitator from Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He told me people sometimes find comfort in talking to strangers about things that they have trouble discussing with their closest relatives.

“It’s a little bit like the opening and the closing of [that] Tom Hanks movie, when [Forrest Gump] sits on a park bench and strikes up a conversation with somebody next to him,” Long said. “He doesn’t know who that person is, and that person doesn’t know who he is, but they share things.”

Jim Kirkpatrick, a death cafe facilitator in Northern California, said the conversations often give him more of an appreciation of his life and the people in it.

“Often, I’m reminded when I leave a cafe: Who do I love, and who do I reach out to?” Kirkpatrick said.

Honoring grandmother’s life

We had a memorial for my grandmother this summer, on the weekend of what would have been her 89th birthday. We gathered under a white tent in my aunt’s backyard in Cape Cod, a place my grandmother lived for 25 years, with family and friends alike, and we ate chocolate mousse and listened to French music to celebrate the life she lived.

I wish I could say I had some sort of grand epiphany after this exploration of death and grief, but the truth is, I didn’t. I certainly understand more now about how grieving functions on a psychological level, but I don’t feel any need to talk about death all the time. If there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that grief is an extremely subjective and personal experience.

I know I’ve learned that I love to hear stories about my grandma. I like to hear about her young and wild days and the crazy things she said to my dad growing up. And sometimes, I wish she were here to tell those stories. But I know that I will carry on with what she’s given me, things like a love of cooking and languages.

I realize now that the fact that our time with friends and family is finite gives these relationships their value. And I plan to cherish the relationships I have while I can, and to tell stories about them long after.

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