I Never Said Goodbye

Grief, Memory, and the Echoes That Stay With Us

The last thing I can clearly remember my grandmother saying was this:

“Your kids are crazy.”

We were in Florida, in the little outdoor patio space of her senior living complex. She had vascular dementia by then—supervised care, memory lapses, the usual cruelness of a fading mind—but her voice that day was sharp, warm, amused. My brother and I must have been doing something loud or silly or both, because she turned to my mom, said her name, and laughed.

“Your kids are crazy.”

It’s strange what sticks. The way a moment like that becomes a full-body memory. The smell of sun-warmed brick. The texture of patio chairs. That flicker of mischief in her tone, cutting through the haze of illness. I didn’t know it would be the last time I saw her in person. I don’t think any of us really did.

Later, when the end was near, my mom offered to bring me down again. I didn’t go. I told myself I couldn’t handle seeing her like that. That I’d be too hurt. That it would break me.

And maybe it would have.

But I still wish I went.

Even if she wouldn’t have known who I was. Even if all I could do was sit beside her and hold her hand. That wasn’t the point. The point was—she would’ve wanted me there. And I wasn’t. That absence still sits inside me, decades later, like a bruise that never fully fades.

I think about her often. About the condo she lived in when I was younger. The holidays spent there. Her graham crackers. That big bowl of Andes Mint Chocolates I’d sneak way too many of. Her cooking—spaghetti, ketchup, American cheese, and some mysterious buttery magic that I’ve never been able to recreate no matter how hard I try. I never properly thanked her for it. That sticks with me too.

I remember watching TV in my grandfather’s recliner—long after he passed. I remember the yellow-orange striped chair with the wooden arms, the stuffed dog toy that held the remote. These are the moments that feel like photographs in my head. Little snapshots with texture and smell and emotion baked into them.

And it hits me sometimes, hard, unexpectedly. Like grief pulling back the curtain for just a moment. The pain doesn’t feel distant—it feels immediate. It returns with full volume. Like they died yesterday.

I’ve lost other family members too. My other grandparents. My uncle. Each one left behind these fragments—paper plates on our heads in laughter, the barking of dogs in their living room, quiet car rides, kitchen smells. None of it huge. All of it sacred.

But grief doesn’t obey time. That’s the thing no one tells you. It isn’t linear. It doesn’t fade cleanly. It’s a tide, not a wound. It comes back when it wants, bringing sadness and love and memory all tangled up together. And if you never got to say goodbye? It brings that too.

I never learned how to grieve the way others did. Or maybe I did—it just looks different. It looks like suddenly crying in the middle of writing. It looks like missing someone while eating candy they once gave you. It looks like wondering, late at night: would they be proud of me now?

I hope they are. I hope my grandmother can see me. See that I finally found someone who loves me for exactly who I am—crazy, chaotic, passionate. That I’ve made it through things that should have broken me. That I’m trying, every day, to be better. To be kind. To live the values she instilled in me, even if I didn’t recognize them back then.

I never said goodbye.

But I’m saying thank you now.

And I’m saying: I remember.

These days, I talk to my mom almost every day. That wasn’t always true. When we lived together, we fought. Like her and her mother used to. We butted heads, shouted, walked away, circled back. I understand it more now—the stubbornness, the hurt beneath the surface, the fear that manifests as control. But I also see the love in it. Always the love.

I’m trying to stay closer to my family. To my aunts, my cousins, the ones I grew up with and the ones I drifted from. So many of our wounds weren’t permanent—they were just stupid fights, miscommunications, personality clashes. Life is too short to let that kind of dust gather into distance.

I don’t want to regret again what I regretted with my grandmother.

I know that life doesn’t guarantee us neat endings. We don’t always get the chance to show up at the hospital. We don’t always get the closure scene. Sometimes we find out too late. Sometimes we don’t get to fix what we thought we had time to fix. But I want to do what I can now. I want to reach out. I want to love people in the present tense.

Because grief doesn’t just come from loss. It comes from all the things you never said when you could have. All the visits you didn’t take. All the small kindnesses you thought you had time for.

So I’ll keep trying. Keep speaking. Keep calling. Keep loving—even if it’s messy, even if it’s late.

Because that’s the only real answer I’ve found to grief:

More love.

And maybe that’s part of what I’ve been writing this whole time. In every blog post. In every photo I ever took. In every song I ever released. A kind of grief-language. A way to say: I miss you. I love you. I hope I’m making you proud.

That’s what life taught me too. That kindness matters more than performance. That clarity matters more than perfection. That love isn’t just a feeling—it’s an action. A choice.

So I choose to remember.

I choose to cry.

I choose to keep the chair warm, the candy dish full, the spaghetti slightly weird.

And I choose to live in a way that—maybe, just maybe—honors the people who helped me become who I am, even if they’re gone now.

Even if I never said goodbye.