That's Fucked Up

For Gramps

The thing about time is, it stops for no one. Not someone late for a job interview, not someone wishing for more hours of sleep, and certainly not for brothers Gerard and Mikey Way, although it felt like it did.

The Way brothers were at work, like any other Tuesday when Gerard got the call from his aunt.

"Is Mikey there too?" She asked on her end of the line.

"Yeah, what is it?" He asked, impatient.

"Your grandmother Helena, has passed."

Gerard was no stranger to death, him trying to off himself multiple times before. To him, death was his old pal, he even welcomed the idea. He grasped the concept of it more than the average person. He understood that when people die, they pass on to another realm, other than our own. He often referred to this other realm as a parade of people, if you will.

He knows no one can live forever, so when it processed that Helena is gone, he simply felt somewhat hollow. Not hollow exactly, but a complicated mixture of hollowness, empty, distressed.

For Mikey, it's like time stood still, the way it did before. His beloved grandmother was gone. For years she was his rock, and now, she's gone. He couldn't imagine hoe his brother felt, hell, he couldn't even process his own feelings, but oddly enough, opposed to Gerard, understanding was the feeling that trumped the others.

He understood that she was old, and it was her time, and he respects that, knowing she didn't die tragically. He found a sense of comfort in that.

The boys soon end the call after few words were exchanged and retreated into their thoughts. Memories of her, her fingers deftly gliding across the keys of her piano making the most beautiful sounding tunes, her spending hours on end knitting and sewing to make the boys socks, scarves, or whatever she felt like making that day, the delicious smell of cookies coming from her older-than-dirt but-still-works oven, late nights when she would take the boys out into the back yard and teach them the difference constellations, like the tears on their lashes. But they both know it was for the better, and later that night, they both go home and lay their weary heads down to rest, knowing that they'll be better days to come.

The end.