More Will Be Revealed

Reflecting on the August Sturgeon Moon with Maverick near and a special grandmother in my heart.

The moon was orange-yellow, glowing so bright it looked almost impossibly full.

I was sitting outside on an overnight pet-care job, a little dog named Maverick curled near my feet. The night air had that particular late-August thickness to it — warm, a little damp, the cicadas starting to thin into quiet. I looked up, and the light stopped me. I sat there for a long moment just admiring it.

And as I sat there, I thought of a woman named Sunnie B. Eastridge.

Only afterward did I check the date.

August 29. Five years, to the day.

Five years earlier, on August 29, 2021, I was supposed to be saying goodbye.

I didn't know that day would become the day I lost not only a woman I loved, but the last of an illusion I had carried for years.

August 14, 1930 — August 29, 2021. She was 91 years old when she died in Hillsboro, Ohio.

To the outside world, she was my former husband's grandmother.

To me, she was Grandma Eastridge.

And she had made it very clear that our relationship did not end when my marriage did. That mattered. More than I think I understood at the time.

I met Sunnie because I married her grandson. But somewhere along the way, she became my grandmother — not because a marriage certificate said so, but because she said so.

She was sweet and charming, with a spirit that treasured the things I treasure: legacy, nostalgia, family stories, traditions, the ordinary pieces of a life that become extraordinary because someone remembers them.

I loved being in her kitchen. I can still see myself there in Hillsboro, standing with her while she taught me how to make Swiss steak. Thin cuts of sirloin simmered in tangy tomato sauce. Green bell pepper. Sweet Vidalia onion. White mushrooms.

“Some basil and oregano,” she'd say, sprinkling them in without measuring.

And then there were the two bay leaves. I had never seen a bay leaf before. She showed them to me.

It is funny what stays. Not the grand occasions. Not the photographs. Sometimes it's two dried leaves in the hand of a woman who loved you.

After my divorce, I tried to maintain those relationships. Birthday cards. Christmas cards. Calls. Social media.

And Sunnie made her position unmistakably clear. When I became engaged to another man, she reminded me that I would always be her granddaughter. She wanted to meet him. She told him, too.

I believed her. Because I knew she meant it.

And perhaps that is why what happened five years ago hurt so much.

In the years following my divorce, I remained tangled in something I would eventually come to understand as a very long, very painful case of limerence. I had spent an enormous part of my life believing that somehow, someday, my family would find its way back to itself. An intact, loving, healthy nuclear family had been everything to me. It wasn't simply something I wanted. It was the legacy I had poured myself into creating.

So even when circumstances should have told me otherwise, some part of me continued looking for evidence that the story wasn't over.

Months before Sunnie's death, my former husband had said something to me that I will never forget.

“Lis, maybe it's God's way of protecting you from me.”

I heard the words. I didn't understand them. Not yet. I was still trying to save something I didn't realize I had already been released from.

There had been plans for me to go to Hillsboro. Twice before, dates had been given to me, and the trips had been canceled.

Then, in August 2021, Sunnie's health was failing. I was told she was going to die soon — but not by the person who had promised I would be there.

I learned that my former husband and my daughter were already on their way to Hillsboro to say goodbye.

I wasn't going. I had not been invited.

There was no warning. No final phone call. No video call. No opportunity to tell Sunnie what she meant to me.

I don't even remember exactly what happened in the hours afterward. That summer had already been exceptionally difficult. There were other things happening — things that, at the time, I couldn't possibly process all at once.

What I remember most clearly is the feeling of being further and further excluded from everything.

And I remember the grief. Not just grief for Sunnie. Grief for what I thought my family was. Grief for what I thought might still become. Grief for a future I had spent years trying to resurrect. And grief for the awful realization that sometimes a person can be standing outside a door they thought was still open without realizing that it had been closed a long time ago.

I don't know whether Sunnie knew I wasn't there. I believe she knew I loved her. I believe she may have asked about me. And I believe she was never told.

I have no way of knowing that for certain. That uncertainty used to torment me.

Now, it doesn't. Because I know something else. She knew me. She knew who I was. She knew that I loved her. And she had already told me the thing I needed most to hear.

You will always be my granddaughter.

That was hers to give. And nobody could take it back.

There is a phrase familiar to many people in recovery: 

More will be revealed.

It is a reminder not to demand immediate answers from a life that is still unfolding. Sometimes we simply cannot see what something means while we are living through it. We want the explanation. We want the apology. We want the missing pieces. We want someone to tell us why.

But sometimes the answer comes years later. Not as an explanation. As understanding.

For me, Sunnie's death became a kind of brick wall. I hit it hard. It took years to understand that the pain wasn't only about being denied the opportunity to say goodbye to a woman I loved. It was also the moment when life began dismantling an illusion I had protected for decades.

I had to learn to let people be who they were. I had to stop trying to force relationships into the shape I desperately wanted them to have. I had to stop confusing my capacity to love with someone else's capacity — or willingness — to love me in the same way.

And eventually, I learned the words that have become so freeing to me:

Let them.

Let them misunderstand. Let them choose. Let them walk away. Let them tell whatever version of the story they need to tell. Let the door close.

And then — let yourself walk through another one.

Five years passed.

And on August 29, 2026, I sat outside with Maverick under that same brilliant, orange-yellow moon.

It looked almost impossibly full — but I later learned that it wasn't, quite. The full Sturgeon Moon had peaked just after midnight on August 28. By the 29th, it had technically begun to wane — a waning gibbous moon, still almost completely illuminated and still looking full to the naked eye.

I found that strangely fitting.

Because perhaps grief is like that. Something can begin to wane without becoming less beautiful. Something can move away without disappearing. Something can no longer be physically present and still illuminate parts of you that might otherwise remain dark.

Five years ago, I was desperate for someone else to give me permission to say goodbye.

This year, I simply remembered her. And I smiled.

Because Sunnie is no longer trapped in the circumstances of her death. She is in the kitchen with me. She is in the Swiss steak. She is in the bay leaves. She is in the stories. She is in the birdhouse Grandpa Eastridge made by hand and gave to my mother. She is in the part of me that still believes our lives are made richer by remembering where we came from and the people who helped shape us.

And she is in the legacy I carry forward.

I saw her. I knew her. I knew her for herself.

Despite whatever jealousy, fear, insecurity, or control may have existed around her, I knew what I experienced with her. It was sincere. It was real. It was love.

So, Grandma Eastridge —

I love you so much. And I am blessed to have had you in my life.

You told me I would always be your granddaughter. You were right.

And now I understand something else: some goodbyes are not given to us by other people. Sometimes, after all the fighting and grasping and questioning and grieving, we discover that the goodbye was never really the point.

The love was.

And the moon keeps shining. Even as it wanes.

More will be revealed.

And sometimes what is revealed is that the door behind you needed to close so you could finally turn around and see the road ahead.

Grandpa and Grandma Eastridge remain part of mine. Not in my past. In my future. Carried forward in the beautiful spirits they left behind.

And that, finally, is peace.