see the curios girl with that look on her face...
I know I should be sitting with my mother since she can't get out of bed, but I can't seem to hold myself down in one position for over a time span of 5 minutes. I rather be at Ashley's house, listening to music, or walking somewhere unknown. We'd sit on the couch with Dez and I'd ask her mother if she likes humus. Oh well, I'm stuck here until
My grandfather died 3 years ago, I last time I saw him smiling was about 2 months before he died, my immediate family (parents and brother) was living in London at the time, and we'd gone back to Italy for the Christmas holidays because the doctors had said he'd only have about a year to live, a year that turned into two months.
This one afternoon, it was the 23rd, just before Christmas, everyone was in the kitchen preparing all the desserts and food for Christmas Day, except for my Marzia (cousin) and my brother, who were in her room both playing Tomb Raider.
My grand-dad was in the lounge room, his room, no one really ever went in there much, its where he watched his westerns, his soccer games, and where I always went to listen to old vinyl records from the 60s.
He was sitting on the couch, and he just wanted to sit there, with my head on his lap, happy, I was an impatient kid, I wanted to talk or do something, because I simply couldn't just sit there quietly - immobile, I still can't do that now; he didn't want to talk, because he got out of breath just by saying a few sentences.
I kept leaving to go watch my cousin playing Tomb Raider, and he'd ask for me, my dad would come find me and tell me that he wanted me to go sit with him, and I'd tell my dad it was boring and there was nothing to do, but I went back, left 5 minutes later, and then my dad would come back to find me and tell me my grand-dad missed me.
He died in the last week of February, and for the past two weeks I'd been arguing with my parents that I wanted to go back to Italy because he'd been telling me to come visit because he didn't think he'd be around for much longer, he'd tell me to just talk to him, that he wanted to hear my voice and that he wouldn't talk but he'd still be listening, so I'd talk to him for hours about my day and he'd sit on that couch and listen to me.
I argued and argued with them asking them why we were waiting for him to die before getting on a plane, not realising we were really tight on cash.
One day my dad came to pick me up after school and tells my form teacher that I'd be away for about two weeks, I was so happy because I thought I'd finally convinced them to go to Italy and I'd get to sit with my granddad on the couch again.
When I got home everything seemed to be normal, until about 8 that night when my brother called me, and told me that he'd died, and that mom and dad had known all day, I was so angry at my parents that as my brother told me how he held my grandfathers hand as he died I couldn't even cry, I hung up on him and started screaming at my dad and smashing plates against the fridge, making a scene for no reason.
The point of this was just to say that I know how you feel when you say that you get bored sitting by her bed, but that I spent so long after he died thinking of how selfish and childish I'd been to not sit there with him, listening to his heart beat.
I still wonder whether he knew I loved him even though thats one of my last memories of him.
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