Goodbye

I'm heading to my first home today; the home where I spent my childhood and I'm dreading it.

It's a place where, in my minds eye, all remains the same. The trees we'd play in remain standing, the hills we rolled down still as magnificent as they were when we were small. So many pieces of me remain there, protected from what would come.

Except there is no protection there anymore.

I'm going to walk into my grandparents home, just as I did on Christmas, and nothing there will be the same, for he is gone, and I cannot wrap myself around this. When I try to begin to comprehend him passing, I sob or I start wringing my hands or tapping my chest or rubbing my neck or moving my feet and demand my thoughts to go elsewhere.

I've no regrets to our goodbye; I don't wish I'd said something more or done something differently, just a kiss on the forehead and an "I love you Gramps and I always will" to which he responded, "I love you too. You take care of yourself," his withered hand had grasped mine, "You take care of yourself and those girls and remember the good. Focus on the good." It might be the first goodbye to which I've not later wished for more.
 
I have to tell Big A today, and I don't know how I will do this. I know what the news of this will do to her little heart, and I can't stand the thought of it. I feel like I should know more, like I should be able to cope, like I should be a blanket of comfort for her, but the truth is that my heart is also raw; in ways, I suppose, still very childlike.

I laid on the couch last night and tried to picture what today will be like, but I didn't get very far. My mind went back to so many memories of him that I became lost in emotion and could barely breathe.

Is this adulthood then? Our hearts and minds screaming, sobbing, "no", and our bodies and motions saying, "but you must"?

I don't know how I will do this.

Godspeed Gramps.

Gone

"He is gone".

That simple sentence keeps ruminating through my mind; an endless whisper of what is now true; a constant reminder of what will never be the same.

You can speak to me of memories, but I know them, and I keep them with me.

You can remind me of a better place; I know that he is there.

For the time being, these things do not change what is the truth to me right now, and that truth is achingly painful, and I am indescribably sad.

The simple truth leaves me sobbing in my car, circling the parking lot, unable to stop the car or muster the energy to actually go inside.

This simple truth has me tapping my chest, willing it to take deep breaths in and out and reminding it not to allow the hard jagged sobs that seem to take it over at will.

This simple sentence has me at a loss; has all of my family at a loss, and I'm just trying to comprehend that no matter the days that pass, life will never be the same.

This simple sentence has me begging the world to stop; to pause; just for a moment, and yet this life is pushing me along: bathe my children, do my work, feed the birds, play with the dogs, work with Big A on her pitching and Little A on her ABC's and debate with anyone who will listen why the Tigers should keep Kenny Rogers as a mid-game reliever.

And then finally, there will come a pause, a break in the routine of my day, and in those moments of silence, I cannot help it, I weep.

I'm not a stranger to death or loss.

I'm just not sure that I've lost someone that I loved so much; someone that was such a magnificent part of my life; someone that always brought a smile to my face.

It's difficult to think that I will not see him again; that there will be no more emails from him, no more Tigers games with him, no more hearing his accented voice singing hymns.

I know, that in a sense, he is there; that he exists within all of us.

It's just that despite that truth, the simple one still exists.

He is gone.

And so I weep.