A Date To Remember

4/30/15.

The day my grandfather died, I cried for hours. The day he died, I thought my world was going to end. And in a way -- it did. The world did continue revolving around the sun, but he did not. He did not continue on, and that made all the difference to me.

He continued to be in my heart, and in my mind (my thoughts) but in my life? He was gone. He was dead. I still don’t quite understand what it means to die. Perhaps I never will, until I do it myself.

On the thirtieth day of April in 2015, I woke up and I knew it was going to not be a good day. Papaw’s strength had gone the day before. It was only a matter of time before the light in his eyes did as well, right? Right.

When I went into the room he died in, I felt cornered. There were so many people. There were people everywhere; my Nana at Papaw’s side, my cousins around the bed, and my aunt and uncles were there too. Even relatives I’m not sure how closely they are related to me, were there.

All because of Papaw. Papaw mattered. And I never felt more like that than on the day he died. The world may have gone on, but for those twenty-four hours, the world seemed to stop. Stop rotating, stop moving, time even stopped. I had no concept of when it was that he died. I still don’t.

I heard singing. Lots of it; my Uncle David was playing guitar, and we were gathered around him, singing worship. Praise be to God, even though He was taking away the most important man of my life.

I don’t remember the song’s names, but I am sure it is burned into Uncle David’s mind. Perhaps one day I’ll ask him about it. I do remember how strong my cousin’s arms were, holding tightly to me so that I would not crumble when I fell.

Oh, and fall I did. When his last breath was taken, I swear my own heart stopped. I could not continue for a moment, and then, after I cried…. I stopped. I stopped crying, and I went out of the room. I went to call my Mom. She lives in Kansas, and didn’t even come to say goodbye to him. I think I hate her for that.

She was monotonous on the phone when I called. Then I texted my friends, my beams of support, that it had happened. I didn’t read their replies. But I knew they were there for me - as surely as if they were there beside me.

And then it registered inside me that Memaw, my great-grandmother, wasn’t there. I asked where she’d gone, because how could she miss this moment? Apparently, it hadn’t been a choice for her to make.

She’d fallen when she was trying to come inside the house. She’d hit her head, hard, and it had made her gush blood out of her head. I am thankful I did not see this. She’d gotten to say goodbye to him, but then she wasn’t there when it actually happened. I rather think she will never forgive herself for that, however out of her control it might have been.

Papaw’s death impacted me. I think I might never recover from it. Not in the way you’d think, anyway. I was there when it happened. I watched Nana wipe the sweat from his brow, and I watched her whisper a goodbye in his ear. She didn’t love him as fiercely as she had when I was young, perhaps she’d never even loved him that fiercely, but she’d been there.

And in the end, I suppose that’s all that really matters.