Dear Granddad,

I've been thinking about what I would say to you for a long time. I still don't know what to say or how to say it, so I just want to speak from my heart.

It's been 13 years, but I remember the day like it was yesterday.

It was Valentine's Day, 2002, two days before my birthday. I remember all the excitement I had built up turning in to utter devastation when Mom and Dad told me you were gone. I didn't understand how bad you were hurting. I didn't realize how much the cancer was taking out of you. All I knew was that I had lost you. All I could do was cry and ask why you were gone.

When I think about that day, it's still agonizing to me. As a man, we have this thing where we do our best not to get emotional and not to cry. For whatever reason, we see it as a sign of weakness to show our emotions. We have to be strong and courageous in hard times.

Yet, whenever I think about you, I can't hold my emotions back. I still get choked up when I see this picture of us:

This picture helps me to understand the kind of man you were. Caring, comforting, loving, selfless, and proud. It makes me feel that we weren't just family members. We were best friends.

I never got to see you before you passed away. I wanted to go with Dad to see you, but he said it was a trip that he needed to make on his own. So, we never truly got the chance to say goodbye to each other. For a while, that was the biggest regret of my life. Sometimes, I felt guilty that I didn't. You deserved to hear that I loved you and that I would always remember you. I felt it was such an unfair way for us to end.

Then, one day a couple years ago, Mom gave me a letter you had written a few days before you passed away. In the letter, you told me that you were sorry that you wouldn't be alive for the milestones in my life. Yet, you said you would always be with me and that you always had and always will love me.

You never said goodbye.

In that moment, I realized that when you passed away, our relationship never ended. We didn't have to say goodbye.

Even though I can't see you, I know you're still with me. You're still alive in my heart and my memories. I can still talk to you when I want to. You'll still be there for me when I graduate college, when I get my first job, when I (maybe) get married, and for everything I ever do in my life.

A lot has changed from 13 years ago. I've grown up now, and I hope that I've made a lot of strides in life that would make you smile. Yet, some things have stayed the same from 13 years ago. I still miss you. I still think about you most days and wonder if I'm making you proud. I think, somewhere in me, I will always be that 7-year-old kid that is devastated you aren't here. I'll still be that seven year-old kid that just wants to talk to you one more time. I don't know if I can ever put that part of me in the past. I'm not sure I want to.

But what I realize now is that when you passed away, it wasn't our end. It wasn't goodbye.

So, thank you for never saying goodbye. Thank you for always being there for me. Thank you for everything you did for me when you were alive, even when your cancer was making you struggle. Thank you for providing such a great example, along with my dad, of the man I want to become one day.

I hope I make you proud, granddad, because I'm so proud of you. I love you.

Sincerely,

Zach