Perdidas Tremendas

There comes a time in your life when you have absolutely no clue how you're going to make it through when everyday presents a new loss to you.
2 Sundays ago my yia yia (grandmother) died. The next day I called my shrink and she had closed her practice and moved to California for health reasons. The next day after that I found out I didn't get the internship I was basically promised at Company X. My family is in hysterics, they have no money to pay for my yia yia's funeral expenses and I'm unemployed. I am literally hanging on by a string. I have my house, my friends, and my family...thank God. I know this will pass, I just don't know when.
I believe that our crises come along to make us stronger, but sometimes we have to be melted down in order to become the alloy we were meant to be.
My yia yia meant the world to me. She was my twin soul, my unconditional love that I could always count on. She was a beautiful, vivrant young woman and a witty, strong, sharp older woman. She loved us so much and even when she was mad at us it was always out of love. She wasn't perfect, but one thing I learned from her is to live your life the way you want to live it and everyone else will deal with it. Some people fear they'll be left alone in the end with that kind of attitude, but my yia yia was surrounded by people who loved her day and night in her last months. She had 24 hour care from her family, and not once did we resent her for it. She hated being vulnerable and weak, but she always thanked us for taking care of her. The last time I saw her I told her how sorry I was that we had to do that to her and she said "no honey, you were like my little angels coming to help me in the middle of the night." I made sure to kiss her and touch her forehead everytime I applied her medicine or fed her. Holding her and having her close to me was so fulfilling, like I finally had a place to put all my pent up love and affection. I couldn't believe that even through everything she was suffering, she was still worried about us. I was pulling the night shift taking care of her and she kept telling me to go to sleep that I had been up all night...she was worried if we had eaten or taken care of ourselves and I kept telling her not to worry. I know she heard our conversations about my aunt and uncle possibly getting a divorce, or MMM and I separating...she asked me how he was and I said "fine"...she said "he's a good guy." She's right- he is...and who knows what will happen.
Something inside me just doesn't know how she found the strength to worry about us when I can barely keep it together if I have a chest cold. Is it age? Experience? Hypochondria? I'm at a loss...I want to be stronger, less transparent, less vulnerable. I want to be the person that you can go to no matter what. I want to be known for my endless fountain of love when I die. I want people to remember me as someone who inspired and strengthened them.
I feel like my world is crashing around me and I barely can pick my head up before something else falls out of the sky. I want peace...I want serenity. Logically I know that I have to look around me and be thankful for all the things I do have, and not all the things I don't. I think on the list of the top most stressful things that can happen to you it goes: loss of a loved one, divorce, loss of a job....all of which have either happened to me or are in the process of happening to me this week.
Nothing can change who my yia yia was and is to me. Her love and spirit will always live inside me no matter where she is. Her youthful candor, her dry humor, and her strong will are still here reestablishing themselves in my life and the lives of her children and grandchildren. I will find my voice once again, and that alloy I was looking to become will be reinforced with her soul.