December 10, 2021. around 5-9 am. that's when I lost him, and I wasn't told until 4 pm that day.
the holidays are slowly becoming bittersweet, every single day I have lived since that day the words "it's not fair" echoes throughout me at every single moment possible
it's not fair that he had to leave me. he died at 81, he lived a extremely full life, he had 5 wives and 2 kids and 3 grandkids and 3 more great grandkids, but god, I didn't have enough time with him at all.
I miss the way you'd wake up at 5 am on the dot, and I'd get up just to scramble to lay in your lap as you brewed your dark morning coffee and watched the news. and you'd lay me right over your legs when I was still so tiny, and rub my back and run your fingers through my hair until I fell asleep again. sometimes you carried me back up those rickety old stairs to put me in bed. sometimes you propped me up onto your shoulder and held me while I slept. sometimes you put me on the couch right next to you and let me nap my mornings away, only 5 years old.
it's a wonder in itself you survived until I was 16- going through a knee replacement and a hip replacement and 2 open heart surgeries. part of me wishes I was right next to you when it happened, to look at you one last time. the other part of me is thankful and partially guilty that I was 4 states away and many hours too late to see that. nonetheless, we continue onwards
I miss your thinning gray hair- i couldn't even tell you had brown hair until I saw pictures of a younger you after you died. I miss the way you complained about everything you saw on the news- and how you refused to keep up with technology and kept the old flip phone you had since the early 2000s. I miss only being able to call you in the afternoon when you were busy making cookies and feeding fat little babydoll because you had no clue how to text at all, and I miss standing next to you and accidentally shaving both my eyebrows off while you were shaving too.
grandpa, I miss your baby blue eyes and how you only ever drank diet pepsi. that stuff tasted terrible to me but, lord, for the entire time I've known you, you only ever drank diet pepsi. and you'd sit and continuously feed me sweets all day because you believed no baby should be skinny.
I miss fighting you on wearing dresses to Christmas parties and being nice to my classmates on every other holiday- and I miss calling you to pick me up after I was done hanging out with my very best friend at 6 years old. I miss the way you held me and let me cry when I couldn't spell "together" on a spelling test and got a 19/20 score.
it's NOT FAIR! it's NOT FAIR that my grandpa had to die right before my highschool graduation. I'll have plenty of friends and family to celebrate everything with me but I wanted HIM- I wanted to be guided by and confide in my grandpa as I grew. unrealistic, I know, he was 80! I wanted to be embarrassed when I introduced my first serious boyfriend, and I wanted to stumble and cry when I came out as a boy. he predicted I was a boy before I was born. and I wanted one last Christmas present, one last pumpkin pie, one last oatmeal raisin cookie, one last sniff of his patterned button ups when I went in to hug him. one last diet pepsi together, one last garden to take care of, one last pet for babydoll while we both teased how fat of a sausage she's become, I wanted one last hand hold, one last kiss on the forehead, just ONE MORE sleeping while holding his finger because of the nightmares I've had since I was little, and because he comforted me. I wanted to see my grandpa in all his alive, stubborn glory one last time.
and I didn't get that.
so I guess that's one thing to anticipate when I'm 80 and ready to leave this world too.
Merry Christmas grandpa
