Grandpa.
I can't bring myself to call people out of the blue yet, but today when someone asked me how my grandpa was doing I realised that I have to just start dealing with it:
My grandpa died on Tuesday morning.
I'm ashamed to admit that I had started to think it would be better this way - not just for him to avoid another agonizing recovery in the hospital, only to end up back there after only a few days - but because I couldn't stand going to see him there every day and pretend that I wasn't just waiting for him to die. Somehow, though, I never could bring myself to have that conversation with him that you have when both people know that one of them is going to die: the one where you tell them the thing(s) you've never said but always meant to. In this case, it wasn't `I love you` because I said that all the time, but that I was scared for him to die, because I didn't know what I would do without him.
Now that he's gone, I keep thinking of all the other questions I never asked him. Like, why did he leave the farm in Saskatchewan if his father gave all his sons plots of land, and why did he choose construction if he knew so much about farming... Did he know there was a Depression when he was a kid, and what they noticed. I know I could ask my mom or my grandma, but then the answer wouldn't be in his words.
...and my mom just called to say that my grandma wants me to speak at his funeral, which is in three days. I better get writing.
My grandpa died on Tuesday morning.
I'm ashamed to admit that I had started to think it would be better this way - not just for him to avoid another agonizing recovery in the hospital, only to end up back there after only a few days - but because I couldn't stand going to see him there every day and pretend that I wasn't just waiting for him to die. Somehow, though, I never could bring myself to have that conversation with him that you have when both people know that one of them is going to die: the one where you tell them the thing(s) you've never said but always meant to. In this case, it wasn't `I love you` because I said that all the time, but that I was scared for him to die, because I didn't know what I would do without him.
Now that he's gone, I keep thinking of all the other questions I never asked him. Like, why did he leave the farm in Saskatchewan if his father gave all his sons plots of land, and why did he choose construction if he knew so much about farming... Did he know there was a Depression when he was a kid, and what they noticed. I know I could ask my mom or my grandma, but then the answer wouldn't be in his words.
...and my mom just called to say that my grandma wants me to speak at his funeral, which is in three days. I better get writing.