A Sad Day...

My grandfather passed away yesterday.

I’m such a mixed bag of emotions right now….

I was never super close to any of my grandparents. We lived far away from all of them at some points, and then even when we lived close to one of the sets, we still didn’t see them a whole lot. I lost my mom’s mom and dad in middle school and college. I was the closest to my mom’s mom, but she passed away when I was in 8th grade.

When hubby and I moved to Columbus, we were physically closer to my other set of grandparents – my dad’s parents. This is the city where my dad grew up, so we were also closer to my dad’s brother and his family (hubby actually works with him now). The problem with these grandparents was that my mom despised them. I guess they were pretty horrible to her and overall, my grandmother was a very bitter person. I always heard about how bad they were. But my dad loved them…and they were nice to us, especially my grandpa (who we called Beepa which to this day no one in the family knows why).

I remember visiting them in the summer and them taking us to the zoo, and to the pool. Beepa took us to the bookstore and bought us books (something my dad does often with my kids). There was a huge tree by their house that we loved to go down and climb. Their house smelled funny. Beepa was diabetic, so the only treats in their house were sugar-free. They loved to shop. But only clearance items…they would go to the huge Lazarus downtown (which is now Macy’s) and shop the top floor where all the clearance items were. They go really good deals and their whole apartment was always filled with stuff. We would always joke about getting “Beepa presents.” I got a lot of dishes and knife sets from him…they were great bargain hunters!

They moved into an assisted living community about 6 years ago. It’s one of those that starts you off in your own apartment and you’re completely on your own if you want to be, but you don’t have to mow or shovel sidewalks or anything like that. The winter after my daughter was born my grandmother passed away. It really wasn’t that hard for me because she was such a bitter person and not fun to be around at all.

Over the past 4 years Beepa has been at our house most Sundays…my dad comes up and visits him and then brings him over so he gets company and so my dad can see his grandkids. I have pictures of him holding both of my kids after they were just born.

He went into the hospital about a month ago and was recently moved into the hospital at his nursing home. We all knew this was coming, yet it’s still hard. I think the hardest thing will be seeing my dad and his brothers and sister over the next week…losing a parent is difficult, even when you know they won’t be here much longer.

The worst part about this whole thing is thinking about the future when my parents pass away, and thinking about how I will deal with it, and also, how my kids will deal with it since they are so close to my parents. Death is hard and scary. Even though I know that everyone in my family will be reunited in Heaven one day, I’m still dreading dealing with it because unfortunately, while still on earth, there are tears and sadness over loved ones lost.