wow. I'm sorry for you and glad for you at the same time. on one hand, your, and his, awful time of waiting is over, on the other hand, and I know this is projecting from memories of my grandma when she was younger, all of the resources that he was to you, all of the stories and future interactions and living is a lot to be missing when it used to be there, even if it wasn't something ever used or even thought of.
my cousin paul, my aunt and uncle who died as babies, philys and the unnamed baby, my grandpa, they are all gone, like your grandpa is gone, and maybe I was too little to remember them, really and in person, but they always had a life for me, a prescence or existence or space or something, in the stories my family tells. They have so much life in the family mythology that they exist, still live and breathe and hold their places in my family, maybe more passively but still there. Your grandpa must hve a pretty big life in family stories to draw fond kids and grandkids to his bed as he was passing.
(this next bit is meant to be an object example)
my grandpa, and maybe this is a story and maybe I remember it and maybe I remember it wrong, but he used to come home and sit in the old wooden dining room chair, the spare one with the cushion that sat in the living room and our mom, because we lived with grandma and grandpa when we were really litle, would dump my twin sister and I into his lap and tell us to keep him awake. it was a game. my grandpa, and this is from old pictures and memories, he would read us a story before dinner time, all the while with us chubby and sticky toddlers curled up in his skinny old lap. my grandpa, and this is a story, used to pack up his kids every other summer and take them camping, a new state every time. my family has thousands of stories about their adventures camping, and grandpa was always the one to pick the campsite, come rescue his wayward adventurers, know how to get the tent set up or the fire started. one time he drove around an entire town, and down five one way streets the wrong way with six kids and a dog in the car, three of which had to use the restroom, all in pursuit of a street that would lead him to the one gas station where gas was one cent cheaper!
maybe now's not the time for telling stories, but years from now, or maybe this christmas or next forth of july, I bet someone will tell a story and he'll be in it. He'll be there.
my cousin paul, my aunt and uncle who died as babies, philys and the unnamed baby, my grandpa, they are all gone, like your grandpa is gone, and maybe I was too little to remember them, really and in person, but they always had a life for me, a prescence or existence or space or something, in the stories my family tells. They have so much life in the family mythology that they exist, still live and breathe and hold their places in my family, maybe more passively but still there. Your grandpa must hve a pretty big life in family stories to draw fond kids and grandkids to his bed as he was passing.
(this next bit is meant to be an object example)
my grandpa, and maybe this is a story and maybe I remember it and maybe I remember it wrong, but he used to come home and sit in the old wooden dining room chair, the spare one with the cushion that sat in the living room and our mom, because we lived with grandma and grandpa when we were really litle, would dump my twin sister and I into his lap and tell us to keep him awake. it was a game. my grandpa, and this is from old pictures and memories, he would read us a story before dinner time, all the while with us chubby and sticky toddlers curled up in his skinny old lap. my grandpa, and this is a story, used to pack up his kids every other summer and take them camping, a new state every time. my family has thousands of stories about their adventures camping, and grandpa was always the one to pick the campsite, come rescue his wayward adventurers, know how to get the tent set up or the fire started. one time he drove around an entire town, and down five one way streets the wrong way with six kids and a dog in the car, three of which had to use the restroom, all in pursuit of a street that would lead him to the one gas station where gas was one cent cheaper!
maybe now's not the time for telling stories, but years from now, or maybe this christmas or next forth of july, I bet someone will tell a story and he'll be in it. He'll be there.
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