Anything can be an emotional trigger,  a trigger that brings back a flood of good emotions, or bad ones as well. This past week has been one full of flooding emotions.  My children are lucky,  they got to enjoy time with their great grandmother.  That doesn’t happen to everyone.  A large number of their friends don’t have grandparents,  much less the previous generation.  We all spent last Friday at the funeral and every time I turned around there was another trigger.  The grave site was a trigger to when my grandfather died 31 years ago,  my first real brush with death,  and how it still felt now.  I was a just an older version of the kid who hated being left back then.  My dad and his brothers are 31 years older,  and many of the family members are gone all together.  I have a husband and children now that I didn’t back then,  hell I was still in high school when he died,  but the emotions were still the same.
     When I thought of my Jama this past weekend,  and I did a lot of it.  New memories surfaced each time.  Each time she saw my boys she gave them money and a bag of Crunchy Cheetoes.  I always ate half of them.  They are one of my weaknesses.  At the JDRF Walk on Sunday I got a hot dog and the bag of chips they handed me were Cheetoes.

    It was all I could do not to cry while munching away.  My fingers were all orange when I was done,  and I knew she was with me.
     Monday morning I had a cup of tea before work in the fancy cup that she gave me.  One of the pretty blue and gold leaf ones that Mrs.  Ranson brought her back from Bermuda.  After my tea was done I had to go and reapply my makeup.  I am sure I will have more days like this as time goes on and more triggers surface.  But I am just remembering what a good friend told me.  “Cry if you need to,  keeping it bottled up doesn’t do anyone any good,  let it out,  that’s the way we were made.” Thank you,  you are very right!! 😊😢