“You should be here…”

This song is a song on the HELL NO list and it stays there indefinitely.

So grief aside for a minute… have you ever gone somewhere and thought “wow [name] should be here!” It happens a lot with my Bubba as he is always stationed or deployed elsewhere, it happens when I go to new places that I know my momma or bestie would love, etc.

It’s a basic human desire to want to share things with the people you love. But what happens when the person that you want to share things with is gone.

I experience this most during holidays. Thanksgiving is the worst for me because that’s Marriah and I’s shared grandmother’s favorite holiday and almost a full weekend of family filled shenanigans.

What is not discussed about the ” [Name] should be here” moments is the guilt that is associated with those moments.

Guilt; noun, secondary definition: a feeling of responsibility or remorse for some offense, crime, wrong, etc., whether real or imagined.

I feel so freaking guilty about the family events and parties that I get to attend, but she doesn’t.

To be really honest, I know that I shouldn’t feel guilty because I haven’t done anything wrong. And that’s where the “whether real or imagined” comes into play. The guilt is in my head and imagined, which really sucks because I have a pretty vivid imagination and can take things too far with it.

It’s similar to survivor’s guilt, without the one major component. I wasn’t in the crash with her. But I am still alive while she isn’t and I still have this, possibly irrational, feeling of guilt.

She should be here and I feel guilty that I am.

She has missed birthday’s. (Every single one of her nephew’s birthday parties)

She missed holidays.

She missed major milestones like J-Bird’s Sweet 16 and Bubba’s wedding.

She should have been there. At EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. and she wasn’t.

That’s hard for me to deal with because I was. This pandemic has made things a little different, obviously, but my family has found ways to manage. We did Easter together as a family via Zoom and she should have been there.

I don’t know if this guilt is something that will ever go away, because, for the rest of my life, I will always be at celebrations and think “Marriah should be here”. I don’t see that changing, but maybe the guilt of being there without her will. Who knows?

I always talk about grief being a journey and I think that this guilt I’m feeling is a stop (maybe a side path) on my personal journey.

I am always going to miss her. It’s just human nature.

I am always going to wish she were here. Again, human nature.

But maybe, just maybe, I can someday start to let go of some of this guilt associated with it and grow a little bit in the process.

“It’s one of those moments, that’s got your name written all over it
And you know that if I had just one wish it’d
Be that you didn’t have to miss this
You should be here”

Love you always. Miss you forever, Sunflower. 🌻

Credits: “You Should Be Here”
Artist: Cole Swindell (2015)
Written: Cole Swindell & Ashley Gorley
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8WlCqZPTeg