I Suck at This

My great grandfather passed away two weeks ago.

I’m twenty-five years old and this was the first death that has ever really happened in my life. Sure, I remember the passing of some great aunts and uncles, and as a child, a few acquaintances/friends passed, but they were always people I hadn’t really known, people I wasn’t really close to. So I pretty much have zero experience with death, even when it comes to comforting people who are dealing with loss in their own lives, which in no way actually touches me.

Over the summer, my best friend lost one of his great grandparents. I did the best I could to comfort him, but he was living in another state, and I have to own up to this, I totally blew it at being there for him. He knows it, too.

I don’t know what it is, but death makes me want to shy away, to ignore it, to deny it even has happened. I never thought I’d be that person, but I am. I just couldn’t do it. I didn’t know how to comfort him, so I kind of pulled out of that situation as much as possible.

I’m ashamed of that. But I’m only human, and this is something I’m failing at right now.

I didn’t go home for Carvey’s (my great grandfather) funeral. I had planned to. I even set aside a bereavement day with work so that I could travel. But when I thought about making the drive, spending 4 hours alone in the car, seeing my weeping relatives, especially my great grandmother, I felt nauseous and cloisterphobic. I thought it was the drive I was afraid of.

I didn’t go. Instead, I decided to have a ceremony of my own, where I would toss flower petals into the ocean at night and say goodbye to him on my own that way. But the evening came, and my head was dizzy and my body felt as if it was going to collapse. So instead, I went home.

Every night, I’d talk to Mom on the phone, like usual. But all she wanted to talk about was Carvey, the funeral, his family, how Mom Mom was doing. And all I wanted to do was talk about anything else. So, I didn’t call every day anymore, and when I did call, I tried to steer the conversation away from Carvey. Mom commented on how she hadn’t heard much from me lately. I told her I was busy.

I never knew my mother’s father. He was a drunk and I met him once. I believe it was on one of the very few sober days of his entire life. And I do remember my father’s parents. I grew up around them until I was 12. After that I didn’t see them again until two weeks ago. In fact, I was reunited with those grandparents on the same day that I lost Carvey. So in a very real sense, Carvey was the only grandfather I’ve ever really known.

And the funny part is: he and I have no blood relation. He and Mom Mom married when I was two. Apparently I was at the wedding, but I don’t remember. Yet, he’s my grandfather. He’s family, even more so to me than some of the blood family. I can’t even tell you how touched I was when I saw my mother call him her grandfather one day. She had never said that before. He didn’t come into her life until she was into her late 20’s, yet, he was still really the only grandfather she ever knew too.

So, I guess I’ve been fine. These past couple of weeks have been relatively normal. And that’s the odd thing. Life just seems to go on, even when a very important cog is now missing. But I’ve been tired, oh so tired. I get off of work and my chest is heavy, and my feet drag, and my head hurts every night. One night, my chest felt especially…different.

Have you ever felt your soul move? Or do something? I don’t think that we think about our souls very much or that they are our actual selves. I remember once feeling my soul pray. My mother was choking on a piece of candy, and without thinking or knowing what I was even doing, I ran over and gave her the Heimlich maneuver. I had never had any training, but it worked. Yet, in those brief seconds when my mind wasn’t even functioning enough to realize what the rest of me was doing, there was only one thing I was aware of. My soul was praying. I felt it. It reached out to God, and prayed.

And last week, I felt my soul cry. I didn’t know souls could cry, but I was walking down the hall at work, and I felt this bitter weeping inside of me. I hadn’t even been able to cry on my own, but my soul could. I had never experienced that before.

And I’ve just been going on. I did eventually cry once, just briefly, after talking on the phone to Mom Mom, but that was it. I hadn’t mourned. I don’t know how. I literally don’t know how.

And then, there was tonight. I went to see a movie with some friends, and it was a tear jerker, but that wasn’t what got to me. The grandfather in the story was perfect and warm and loving, and his relationship with his granddaughter got me right in the “feels.” I cried in the theatre. I cried at the kitchen table after I got home.

I usually try to give my blog posts nice tidy endings, but I don’t have one this time. I’ve reached the part of my life now where I’m going to start losing people, and the scares the hell out of me. I don’t want to face it, and I don’t even know how.

I suck at this.