30.07.17

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Life and Death. Two topics of which people often have a hard time coming to terms with. What is Life? What is Death? Each individual has their own opinion about it, has their own experiences of which they associate it with. What is my experience of life and death you ask? You shall have to wait and see.

Recently I've lost the life of a loved one. He was 92 and passed away in his sleep at the elderly home my family enlisted him in. He lived 11 years without his wife, has 7 grandchildren and 3 children. I've barely been able to cry and process properly the fact that his actually gone. Nothing but memories myself and my family will remember him by and hold onto for the rest of our lives. Is this a normal grieving process? Who the heck knows. What I do know is that I miss him dearly and would do anything to see how happy he is in heaven with my grandmother.

The funeral is this Friday and after the service, his body will be cremated and his ashes spread with my grandmothers at Lake Eildon— this was where they had built a house together and my family had spent multiple holidays around the time of Easter and Christmas.

The day everything happened, I was due to see him after coming back from my partners house in Warragul. My mother and uncle had seen him earlier that morning and had suggested that 'if I was to see him, today would be the day to do it.' Not that I took that statement literally, until after I'd driven back to Melbourne and met my mother at her brothers house. I'd pulled up out of the front, locked my car doors and found my mother waiting for me on the footpath. That's when I knew, he'd left us and was never coming back.

My first thought was 'I was too late, I'd stayed in Warragul too long and it was my fault I'd never had the opportunity to say goodbye to him.' It wasn't until after I learnt that the incident had occurred not long after I'd spoken to my mother and was why she insisted to 'take my time and come whenever I wished.'

The day after, coming home from my classes (of which I'd forced myself to go to-to try and maintain a routine as normal as I possibly could,) I'd remembered that when I moved from my home in Northern Victoria down to Melbourne- I'd taken with me the letters he had written to me as a child (whenever the tooth fairy would visit after loosing a tooth) and the one he wrote when my twin sister and I had our Debut two years ago. Which reads,

"Dear Boof-head,

Have a great day on the 12th of May 2015.

Wish I could be with you.

Lots of Love,

Donny Don Don— Boof-head."

It's memories like these which I will hold on to and cherish forever. I love you Donny Don Don, sitting in the pond, kissing a fish, on a dish, make a wish, wishing that he'd never married a fish on a dish and will hold you forever in my heart. Rest in peace, from your beloved granddaughter.