There are so many things I could say, but none of them seem right. I have so many questions that I didn't get to ask you. So many things I wanted to tell you...
As a kid I just assumed my grandparents would always be there. I watched my great-grandparents pass away but I was too young to understand. I watched my friends' grandparents pass away, but I was too far removed to understand. It was something that happened to other people. My grandma was just going to keep living and living and that's all there was to it.
When they told me you were sick I didn't understand what that meant other than that I needed to start preparing myself. But for what? When they say "You need to prepare yourself" what does that even mean? Prepare myself for the tears of my entire family? Prepare myself for the indescribable feeling of emptiness? How could I possibly prepare myself for a reality without you in it?
I've shed a lot of tears the last six weeks, as shadows of that reality crossed over into my life. All the close calls, the hospital stays, and the endless preparation for the end made me think, "OK. I've got it. I'm ready."
I could not have been more wrong.
The drive to your house is just over an hour. Yesterday it felt like just over a month. You were gone, but I could still feel you in that house. Your warmth, your smile... it seeps out of the paint. You brought so much love into this world that the environment couldn't help but soak it in. It would have seemed appropriate for you to come walking out of the guest bedroom when we walked in with that huge smile on your face and ask where your hugs were.
See, when they finally take away all the traces of the fact that you were sick... the hospital bed, wheelchair, oxygen machine... that won't make it better. It will be worse. Because those things served as a reminder of the end. When they're gone it will seem like you just... vanished. Everything will be as it was except without you. And that is the worst part of it all.
I have no regrets. I just have fears. Fears that as time goes by I'll forget what your voice sounded like telling me you loved me. That I'll forget what your oatmeal cookies tasted like when they were fresh out of the oven. Fears that as time goes by people will forget you.
I know you're somewhere better. And no one deserves that more than you. I only pray that I can be more like you--so that my house oozes love and warmth. I pray that I love my husband like you loved grandpa.
I miss you so much already. I love you.
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