to you, a million miles away
march 1st marks the day my grandfather died. it's been a week that ive been writing these works to describe how i feel about it. i dont really remember most the day outside of my dad waking me up in the morning being unable to mutter the words that my grandfather had passed away. you never really recover from having news broken to you that way, you know? having to take care of my father, who had pretty much broken down functionally, and dealing with my own guilt and grief. i think i had started the blog a bit after this, seeking some form of control in my life and an empty canyon to pour my tears into.
objectively, his death wasn't a surprise. my family had begun talking about what-ifs a few months before. he had been diagnosed with alzheimer's disease a year and a half prior and developed dementia later on. its a bit ironic, seeing such a good person being dealt such a cruel card. for all the time i had spent with him and all the time i didn't, i knew in the deepest valves of my heart that he was good, why was god giving him such a fate？
to be honest, i dont think you can ever get past loss. you learn to live it of course. day by day it becomes a black cat in the corner of the room that you avoid making eye contact with. if you engage with it, you'll realize it has claws. you leave it there, acknowledging its presence because you cant bring yourself to let it outside, to give it up. we all end up as black cats in someone's room... its just a matter of time.
i think to him a lot nowadays. until the last time he saw me he kept telling me how important my schooling was. even before his death one of my biggest motivators to finishing this degree would've had to be because he told me to. i wonder if he would've been proud how far ive come and where im going. out of anything, i want to have just been able to make him proud while he was around.
when i think about him, i think about his seiko watch he kept getting fixed, his grin when he started trying to tickle you, the way he'd blow his nose in the mornings with enough force to be heard throughout the apartment. small things that sort of uniquely composed him. when i talk with my dad and i see him doing this small behaviour or saying a phrase my grandfather used to say, it brings him back to me again. grief seems to be the ultimate testament to how much you loved someone. the fact that they keep as that black cat due to your love for them.
reflecting on it all now, a year after, i think i've come to realized how important it is to live in honor of the lost. my mom dealt with the loss of her father a few months before she had me, and i often found her telling me that i come off the same way he did. i still don't know what this really means, but i think about him too. despite my only direct connection to him lies in the fact that we share blood, i hold him in regard when i go about my life. even a million miles away now, i hold both my grandfathers in my heart. i can't really do all to much else with this grief.