Midnight Thoughts (Poetry)

A letter to my beloved grandpa

This is the letter I said would follow. This is the first time I wrote about him. I know it's not a poem, but I want to share this with you as well.
Oh also I chose a butterfly as an attached image, because my mom used to tell me every time I saw a butterfly that it could be him visiting us.

I still can't quite get it through my head that you have been gone for ten whole years now. Ten years ago I had to experience, what I would come to know later, the worst day of my life, the day you passed away...Words can't even begin to describe how a piece of my heart was taken away from me the day you were and all I was left with was a huge hole and an aching heart. 

I remember that day so clearly, like it was yesterday. I was at home, watching TV in the sitting room when mum walked in. She had grocery bags in her hands. She was a mess. She was so pale and she wouldn't stop crying. She was hysterical. I kept asking her what's wrong, hoping that what I was assuming hadn't actually happened. When she finally managed to mumble in between her sobs that you were gone, it felt like my whole world had collapsed. I wanted to cry, to scream but I just couldn't get myself to do it. The pain was just that unbearable and I felt it everywhere. 

But I was a nine year old kid and well the unthinkable had happened, so it was no wonder that I drifted into the denial stage. The day of your funeral, mum made me stay home with my little cousins, she didn't want my last memory of you to be the sound of your dead body falling onto the hard ground. So I went up in my room and blasted the radio music the whole day. I can't tell you how guilty I feel about that. I was actually mad at mum for some time because she didn't let me go but I guess it was for the best. I also blamed myself for not spending more time with you when you got sick or knowing what your thoughts or final words were. 

As the first year after your death passed, it finally hit me like a tsunami. You were actually gone for good and there was nothing I or anyone could do to bring you back. So I started sinking into this sadness as if an anchor was dragging me down and I would scream and shout but the noise was only echoed to myself. For a very long time I refused to talk about you, refused to say your name and refused to see your picture. I didn't even tell my close friends at that time. If you ever happened to come up I would pretend like we weren't close and that I was over it.

It was all too overwhelming for me to handle when you passed away. I was just a kid. Too young to lose my idol, my mentor, my rock, my role model, my favourite person. You are such a big part of who I am and for years on, I thought that part had become a huge void. I had such a hard time coping with it and to be completely honest, I don't think I am over it yet. It still pains me as if I have a blade of a knife stuck in my lungs that can't really ever get out. However I did realise that the 'void' that once used to be you, was never a void. You were, you are and you will always be a piece of me. That 'void' is filled with all the memories I have of you. They will always be treasured in a special place in my heart. I haven't forgotten any of them. 

Since the time I could walk and talk, you were always there for me. You fed me, you looked after me, you played with me, you held me whenever I wept, you told me bed time stories so I would go to sleep, you would always pick me and my brother from school and give us sweets that you had stored in your car and make us promise not to tell grandma and that we would actually eat our lunch too which of course later on always lead to us not eating the lunch grandma would put in so much effort to make and well she used to get so mad at us but she actually had no clue whatsoever about what was going down (I told her after your death, I am sorry grandpa I had to, she laughed, don't worry). I remember how whenever I used to get scared in my room, you would always come to the rescue or how whenever I had a nightmare you would hold me in your arms and sleep with me in my bed or you would let me snuggle into yours and grandma's. I remember how you would always defend me and protect me from everything. I remember those cute little hops you would make using jasmine and how you used to decorate your car with them and those jokes you always made. I remember how much you loved your football team and how you would always support it so proudly, something that passed through the family. I also remember the songs you used to sing to me with that angelic voice you had and the fairy-tales you would make up whenever I asked you to tell me one. 

I also remember our last Christmas together, I gifted you and grandma a music box that had two Crystal swans at the top, that I had won in the school's giveaway. It was one of the very last memories I have of you as a strong healthy individual because after Christmas, around February we found out you had cancer, which was a word I had never heard of before. I remember watching you deteriorate due to brain tumour which you were diagnosed with, that made you endure endless amount of pain daily. I remember how it affronted your human dignity and made you incapable to do anything on your own. However, cancer never touched your soul. 

It's not fair what you went through, you didn't deserve the suffering. No one deserves that. I realised as I grew older that when you passed away, your suffering ended, so I guess what I am trying to say is that I am relieved that you didn't have to go through that sickness for a longer period of time.

Though I am pretty selfish and I do still wish you were here. You never got to see me hit double digits or got to know that I decided to study medicine because of what happened to you back then or got to know how much into writing i am or got to see me graduate high school or got to see me become an adult or got to see me passing in university or waved me abroad etc and you are going to miss so much more than that. I really wish you could be here but I know that's impossible. I just hope that I am at least making you proud. 

I really miss you but so does everyone else. Though don't worry about us, we've got each other's backs, we are doing better. Ohana always sticks together. I can't express how thankful I actually I am that I've got the chance to share all those memories with you. Getting to be with you even for that short time we had, was a lifetime of love.You are my inspiration. Even though you are gone, you live on. You live through each and every one of us that loves you so deeply. 

I will never stop loving you 

Your oldest grandchild 

Amalia G.

P.S. I am sorry I don't really visit your grave, it just makes everything a little bit more real but it will be my priority  to do so when I come back.

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

Xoxo
Amalia