For My Grandfather I Guess

My Grandfather passed away yesterday. He was 87. That’s a pretty long life. I’m only 24. A little over a third of that. My dad told me yesterday. They were in the process of moving his body to the funeral home. Everyone was there for my Grandmother. I got a call from her. She didn’t seem too upset, but there was a little sadness in her voice. For some reason she was more concerned with how I was. Overall, I think I’m ok. Nobody was really suprised or overwealmingly distraught. His health has been declining for years. His memory was going. I think the last time he really recognized me must have been over a year ago. Maybe even two. These past months he’s just been laying in bed and not talking or eating. Alot of people found his death relieving. He didn’t have to suffer anymore.

He is survived by his wife and five children. His wife is 89. She’s in good health (compartivley). She can move and take care of herself without assitance. I wouldn’t be suprised if she lived to be 100. All of his children are in their 50s or older. My dad turned 60 last year. My uncle, his oldest, has four children, three of which are married, two of which have their own kids. My aunt, his second oldest, has three kids, two of which are married with children. Her son has been in and out of rehab for drugs and alchol. He often stayed at my grandparents. Recently he was kicked out of there because my grandma caught him stealing money from her purse. He’s like 30 something. My dad is the middle child. He has me and my brother, who is in his sophmore year of highschool. My dad aint getting grandkids anytime soon. My third uncle has two kids. One is married. The other is in close age to me. I think he was diagnosed with schizophrenia a while ago. I’m sure he’s medicated and he just recently went back to school for HVAC. The youngest uncle has one kid and three stepkids who are basically his. One’s married another has a kid and another just graduated highschool. Why am I writing down my whole family. I guess it is to put into perspective how large it is. How spread out it is. Honestly I’ve always felt a little uncomfortable around my own family. Like they were strangers to me. It definitely did not seem that way when I was younger. Our family spent alot of time together. Holidays, birthdays, cookouts. That sort of thing. It can also be said that my grandparents raised a majority of us grandkids when we were younger. They constantly took care of us. While our parents were at work or something, grandma would always come and look after the babies and toddlers. After school grandpa would pick us up and we’d head over to their house to wait until our parents could take us home. Of course things kind of stopped. We all grew up. A good chunk of us have our own families. I kind of stopped going around my grandparents once I hit middleschool. I could be left alone at my house, so I didn’t need anyone taking care of me. So I kind of just stopped seeing my family. I’d go over ever now and then, but it wasn’t like when I was 10.

The relationship I had with my Grandpa was nothing to write home about. Sure I did love him, but we all loved him. He’d pick me up from school and I’d whine that I wanted McDonalds, and he would resist, but then I would say to my stomach “Don’t worry belly, we’ll eat soon” and he’d give in and get me a happy meal. He’d come see me in school plays, and attend grandparents day breakfast school events, and watch me get awards at cub scout cerimonies. He would buy us pirated DVDs from the pulga where he would sell plants. They were always the worst quality because they were filmed footage of a mexican theater. Sometimes we would eat Pecans and he would help me crack open the shell. He’d do it with his hand. He showed me how. Sometimes I could do it and sometimes I couldn’t. Towards the end he didn’t really seem to recognize me. Sometimes he would think I was still in elementary school even through I was clearly in my 20s. When I went off to college he would tell me to be careful up there. Even though it was a couple of hours away from home. Honestly I can’t really remember too much else except these small little things. He had similar relationships with the other dozen of us grandkids. Hell he got to meet some great grandkids which not many people can say they have.

The thing that I really hate was one of my last memories with him. It was a year ago. I was manic. My parents were not aware of it yet. I wasn’t either. It was not that bad in that moment, but it was ramping up. I wanted to visit my grandparents the day after I came back from my stupid Amazon conference. The thing that made me manic. I remember how excited I was to show my grandma all the pictures I took. How excited I was for my future. Then I saw my Grandpa. Just sitting there. He didn’t really recognize me or seem to react to me in any way. He just sat there quietly. I started to cry. Really really cry. Bawling. I said I was sorry that I didn’t come around a lot, that I didn’t spend time with him before things started getting bad, that I could have done more. It made my grandma so upset. She started to cry too. My brother seem startled, my dad started to worry. It was just one big damn mess. During my mania it felt like all my emotions were dialed to 11. Everything that made me sad made me want to die. Everything that made me happy made me feel like I was GOD. This was the first indication that I was manic. All while this was happening, my grandfather showed no emotion to what was going on. I think. It’s hard to remember that stuff. He just kind of sat there. I asked to take a picture with them after I calmed down. I still have it, but I don’t really look at it. Just gives me a sick kind of feeling. He got up to take the picture though. So I guess that was something.

All in all, I think things are ok. He’s not suffering anymore. He lived a long life. Real long. He dropped out of school young to work since his own dad died. As soon as he was able to drive his uncles taught him to drive big trucks. He spent most of his life hauling material to and from a sugar mill. After he retired he started selling plants. Stopped after his plants kept getting stolen for like the 12th time. Raised a bunch of kids and grandkids. And just kind of lived life. I’m curious if he’s there. Whever the afterlife is. I’m curoius if he can see me. If he knows everything now about me. About me wanted to die. About my loneliness. About my fear. About my pain. If he does, I’d hope he can slip me some answers. Just to point me in the right direction. Or at least tell me it will be ok. I don’t know, but either way I just hope he’s happy where ever he is. I love you grandpa.