Echoes of a Beautiful Soul

2025 better be good to my family.

I had a trying year. 2024 was a one of the hardest years of my life. This past year, I brought a new little one into our home. He has so much personality now and he truly was the perfect addition to our family. My two older kiddos are smitten with him.

But in the same token, I watched my grandma quickly pass away from lung cancer that spread to her brain. She did not even get a year after her diagnosis. In that time, her house also burnt down and she was without a home for over eight months. She went through so much in the last year of her life.

She was the toughest lady I will ever meet.

The reason I'm writing about this today is because someone else is going through the loss of their grandma who has stage four cancer currently. So I told her the story about what my grandma said after she found out it had spread to her brain.

The day we found out that it had spread to her brain, I asked her what we could do for her. My grandpa, my mom, and her partner were sitting around the table and they were eating Chinese food. I had only come to her house because she needed to tell me in person what the doctors had discovered.

I didn't truly know what to say to her as I was in shock that I was losing my person. She looked at me, grabbed my hand and she said, "Sit." I had been busy with my own family during some of this last year and healing from a post-partum hemorrhage, and c-section. I had post-partum anxiety that was caused due to an overactive thyroid so I struggled leaving my partner alone with all three kids. I did get to spend time with my grandma and my new baby, just the three of us, which was special to her. I will always treasure the family suppers we shared and the last Mother's day breakfast I got to enjoy with her.

I spent time with her but it didn't feel like enough. I called her probably every day but I know now that she would have just loved spending time with me in person. It was just hard for her and I spent as much time as I could though and constantly kept her updated on the kiddos. She loved my youngest child. He was her favourite Christmas present. I just didn't know that was her last Christmas. Nobody did.

My daughter was named after her. She took the loss very hard. I have pictures on the wall from last Christmas of my two older kids and my grandma. One day, my daughter asked me to take the photo of her and grandma and my oldest son down. I gave it to her and she quickly ran to her room with the picture. When I noticed what she did with the picture, I decided to help her and speak with her regarding how much her grandma loved her. She shoved the picture in a frame that was already in her room, the edges were crinkled in the frame. I took the picture and placed it properly in the picture frame for her. It's still in her room. Navigating my own grief, let alone my children's grief was an extremely challenging lesson for me this year. We are working through it though.

My partner also lost his dad in January this last year. They were not super close because he wasn't an easy person to get along with and he broke my partner's heart more than a few times throughout his life. I tried to support him during a time of grieving. He said he was fine but I knew he wasn't. We had just had a baby, and he lost a parental figure, mind you not a very good one but still- he was grieving what could have been.

One of my favourite memories after my grandma got sick, was after my youngest was born. We scrapbooked together. I have a beautiful book she made for me that I still have from when I was ten years old. I decided to take my art journaling skills and create my kids scrapbooks instead of baby books because it meant that much to me that she created something so beautiful for me to look back on. I wanted to do the same thing for my kids and we got to spend time together working on this project while her new house was being built.

We had a hard but memorable and good year. It wasn't easy at all. But I learnt some pretty valuable lessons from the year 2024.

My message here, my lesson, is this: You never know how much time you truly have. Life just happens randomly. You could get hit by a bus or the world could end tomorrow and we all become zombies. So forgive, don't hold onto resentments, and just love the people that love you. Cherish moments with the ones you love and just be a damn good person. Because people may not remember all the little details, but they will remember how you made them feel. And sometimes, that feeling lasts a lifetime.

I think it's important not to postpone joy. Don't save things for later because later might never arrive. Don't lose the things that make you happy. The simple things like ice cream for breakfast, reading a good book, finding a new television series to enjoy, or spending time with the people you love. I learnt that from her. I will always cherish the beautiful soul that my grandmother truly was.

I will always grieve my grandmother because of the amazing legacy that she left on those around her, just as my partner will always hate his father for the way he treated him. So just be a damn good person and leave the world a little less broken. The legacy that you leave on the people that you love, speaks volumes when you're gone. Her legacy left an impact on our whole community. I will never admire someone as much as I truly loved and admired her. I know she loved me too. I miss her everyday.

Thank you for reading.

Chloe Rose Violet🌹

If you enjoyed this post, please check out my lessons from 2023 down below!