Here's What I Learned From My Grandpa's Death That I'm Using Post-2024 US Election

1 year reflections on losing my person//election lessons

One year ago today I was sitting on Grey’s Beach on a crisp partially cloudy November afternoon while my cousin and his wife walked the length of the boardwalk where a plank carved with the name “Constant” on it greeted them.

I was wrapped in grandfather’s old Cuffy’s sweatshirt. I had been startled awake hours prior in the hospital in a makeshift bed 2 feet away from my grandfather. “He’s gone”, was all she shouted just shy of 2am before rushing out of the room, mentally checking off her to-do list:

Tell next of kin.

Shatter the granddaughter.

I wasn’t cognizant of the steady stream of tears trailing down my face, blotchy and worn from overnight travel and days of little sleep. I stared blankly across the march.

“How am I supposed to exist in a world where he doesn’t?”

Why were all these people at Logan Airport laughing and buying overpriced fruit snacks when my best friend just died? How am I supposed to do dishes, get through the day without sobbing, have anything resembling a normal adult interaction when my person is gone?

I knew at the bare minimum I needed to survive. Thriving was out of the question. Slowly but surely I started to claw my way back from a deep, dark, unreachable place.

Looking back on the last year, I’m surprised to see that I didn’t just survive—I thrived. I tried things I never would have tried. I became more vocal in my relationships. Became intoxicated with how good it felt to start living more authentically. Went to therapy. Joined a jam band. Made plans for my future.

It was more than I could have anticipated in a year that delivered endless other challenges and devastating endings.

And that’s why when I went to bed on Election Night, numb and prepared to just remove myself from politics all together, I could faintly hear my grandfather exclaim in his Boston accent, “What the hell’s a mattah with you?”

He knows I’m full of shit. And so do I.

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I didn’t sob all night like I did in 2016. After Trump’s first victory over Hillary Clinton I had designed my own syllabus of sorts to educate myself on what exactly happened here—which led me to work with social justice movements and political campaigns for several cycles.

I wasn’t surprised, but accepting defeat didn’t feel right either. Nor did this, “We got through this in 2016 we can do it again!”, attitude.

How could I met the shocked faces of my daughters as I relayed that Donald Trump had won and tell them there was no hope? No hope for their future in particular?

“Was it close?”

"No. No it really wasn’t.”

“But, why?”

There’s a lot of factors: misogynoir, the media coverage, the simplicity of the Trump campaign message about inflation, disinformation, etc.

Do you know what group overwhelmingly voted for Trump in 2016, 2020 and 2024?

White women.

I watch my eldest daughter’s face as it tried to find the breakdown in the equation. We spoke about how being adjacent to the patriarchy does not protect women, that we have extremely difficult work to do.

Then, a cheers with the Sparkling Apple Cider I purchased the night prior. We enthusiastically toasted to Kamala Harris and her historic campaign, our State and local wins. We toasted to grandpa and “Norm”, as the kids called him. The bubbles tickled with his particular brand of mischief, the sharp tang of the crisp sparkling cider jolting us out of complacency.

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I told my therapist between heaving sobs recently that I was sick of being “knocked down.”

I get hit, stand up, look around for cars and am immediately flattened.

But did you hear what you just said?

No.

You stand up. You keeping getting knocked down because you do get up.

(I can hear you singing Chumbawamba from here.)

We might need some assistance getting back up. But we get the hell back up because we aren’t just going to survive, we are going to thrive. We are going to improbably get back up because we have this crazy self-preservation streak that doesn’t allow us to wallow.

Norm, The Peoples’ Grandpa, is cheering you on.

-Meredith