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.