Tomorrow will be six months since I lost my Grandpa. One of my best friends. I didn't quite know how fast it snuck up. 6 months without him. 6 months without his smile, without his jokes, without his picking on me, without his hugs. Booooy oh boy, would I love a Grandpa hug.
I remember vividly the last time I saw him. Not the person I saw after I rushed home when my Mom called to tell me I needed to be there. That wasn't him. That was not Grandpa. No, the time I saw him as I left after Thanksgiving break. He told me he loved me, gave me a Grandpa hug I hadn't had in so long, handed me a $100 bill like he always did and said he hoped he would be there when I was back in a couple of weeks for Christmas. The image of him walking away crying is one of the last memories I have of him. Every night since he passed away that's the image that plays in my mind. I can't shake it and I wish I could.
I didn't expect this post to be so sad. I wanted to simply acknowledge that it's been six months since I lost him and move on. But I can't. Because it doesn't seem like 6 months. In a way, it does. Christmas and New Years came and went. My birthday came and went. The snow is gone and the slush has dried up and opened to warm weather and blue skies with the end of another semester. But in every other way the pain, the broken heart, is still just as fresh as it was the days following losing him. The pain is indescribable. There are no words to try and convey the emotion I felt. I was more than sad, I was more than heartbroken. Whatever that pain is, it is still with me, but better tamed, if that makes sense.
I miss him and the talks and the laughter and the vacations with him. My entire family does. But at the same time, I love what losing him did to my family. I don't mean that in any kind of bad way at all, and I know my entire family knows what I'm talking about. After we lost him we spent so much time together. They are some of my best friends and there is no way any of us could have gotten through such a hard time without each other. We were inseparable for 4 weeks and it was the hardest thing in the world for me to come back to Ames after Christmas break and leave everyone.
It has gotten easier. It has not gotten better. But easier. I can think back to memories of him and smile instead of cry. Sometimes. I can look at a full moon and think of him looking down on me rather than thinking that I will never see another full moon with him. I can look at his goofy pictures and smile at his silliness, but that's another "sometimes" I can do that. He's forever with me and even if I can't see him, I know he's with me. In every penny I find on the ground and every full moon. God, I can't tell you how I look forward to full moons. It's almost as though it's one night that I still get to spend with him, as silly as that sounds.
He is one of the most influential people in my life and I think of him every single day. Never is an awfully long time, and I'd like to think that that word doesn't apply to how long it will be until I see him again.
"Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That, we still are
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way
which you always used
Put no difference in your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we shared together
Play, Smile, Think of me, Pray for me,
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same that it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
Why should I be out of mind?
Because I am out of sight?
I am but waiting for you
For an interval
Somewhere. Very near.
Just around the corner.
All is well
"Death Is Nothing At All" --Henry Scott Holland
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