Maybe we have only known that person for a short while, maybe we have known them their whole life, or maybe it's just an acquaintance. We don't know every detail of their life, but we do remember every moment they were in ours. We remember some moments more clearly than others, perhaps because it was a special occasion, like a wedding or a birth, or perhaps it was a terrible fight that you wish never happened. But as soon as someone passes, as the tears come and clear, and for every moment that strikes without warning, we see flashes of that person and how we remember them.
When I get upset, I cry. I also look for a way to express what I'm feeling. Thankfully I don't chose to take out my feelings and yell, or drink; instead I write. There is something so peaceful in typing what I feel...even if what I feel makes someone upset or angry. Right now my thoughts are all in a jumble and my eyes are watery and I'm upset, so I'm choosing to loosen the heaviness on my heart by writing.
On Saturday night, July 7, 2012, my grandfather passed away. I hate that phrase for so many reasons. I hate saying someone passed away because it sounds so politically correct when that's the very last thing I want to be. I hate saying passed away because the words are so ugly and impersonal. Most of all, I hate saying that someone passed away because it means people are hurting, and in this case, I know many people are hurting, myself included.
When I got that call Saturday night, I cried. Then I picked up a picture of my grandfather, one of him and my grandmother with their arms around each other, a time that they were both here and happy, and in love. And it hit me like a ton of bricks. Every Christmas morning we spent together when I was a young girl. The smell of blueberry muffins and White Owl cigars, the smell of Christmas morning breakfast and the cigar smell that always radiated from his clothes (the only cigar smell I can tolerate because it reminded me of him). The rolling green hills that my sister and I rolled down when we vacationed at his house in the summer. Hearing him say, "God damnit" in his gruff voice (something that he said so often it was like his morning greeting). A deck of cards, a pen, and pad of paper (with a hundred flashes of various tables at both of my mom's houses , the house in New York) from all the Rummy 500 games we played. The moments when I would say "I love you Grandpa" a thousands times until I got a response other than "Likewise". Him petting our various family cats growing up with a huge smile on his face. Him pinching my grandma when she begged him to watch movies with us (pretending he was upset about the whole ordeal but with a smile on his face all the same). A laugh that rumbled from his belly when you said something completely off-guard (like the card I sent him for his birthday a few years ago that he kept because it made in fun of how old he was). The way he walked like he had a slight limp (kind of like a penguin walking). The smell of Maxwell coffee. The last Christmas we spent together. The dish he gave to me for my wedding saying he wanted me to have it for happiness in my home because it brought him and my grandma so much happiness in their home. Everything flashed before my eyes. Words. Faces. Smells. Moments caught in time.
Not only did the moments in his life that I shared with him flash before my eyes, but the other things...the last wishes went off in my head. Like how I wish I got the chance to go to New York and visit him more often because he was always driving down here to see me and my family and I never did the same for him. How I wish I could have visited him in the hospital when he got sick these past few months. How I wish that I was there when he passed just so I could say "I love you" one more time. I always had an excuse...I don't have the gas money to get there. I get car sick. It would be so strange going there and knowing grandma wouldn't be there. I had a million excuses. And now I wish I didn't. I wish I could have just a few more moments.
Now, tomorrow I am heading back to New York, for the first time in so long. And not only won't my grandma be there, but my grandpa won't be there either. I will be going back to one of the most beautiful places I've been in my life. To a place that holds so many childhood memories. And it won't be the same. I get to head back with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes to say goodbye to someone who was there for me in my childhood when so many other family members weren't. Him and my grandmother were basically the only family that we had to spend holidays with growing up and now they are gone. Now, I get to visit their home without them. And it hurts. It makes me so sad.
But even through all the tears and the weight that keeps pressing on my chest, I am so thankful and happy for every moment I had with him. Every "I love you" that I received. Every Rummy game won and lost. Every moment I saw his face and heard his laugh. The last Christmas we had together, the one where he brought his new girlfriend to meet us, and the little bit of sparkle in his eyes that had been missing since my grandmother passed.
Now I know the next few days are going to be incredibly hard, for myself and my family and the extended family that I haven't seen since my childhood summers in New York, but at least I know the saying "When you die, your whole life passes before your eyes" is wrong. The one last gift that we get from the person we love is that we get to see their life pass before our eyes. We get moments to last the rest of our lives. Moments that will sometimes stun us into loud, ugly sobs. Moments that will bring a smile to our face when we need it most. Moments that no one can take away, even though the person that brought them to us is no longer there to give us new memories.
I love and miss you so much grandpa (and grandma) and I hope that you are together...right where you belong.
