My grandpa died last Sunday. My family and I went to the funeral on Saturday. Grandpa was 75 years old. His death was marginally expected as he had been in and out of the hospital for a few weeks, moved into a care home for physical rehab, and then back to the hospital, where he went downhill quickly.
If you had asked me a month ago whether my grandpa would die soon I would have probably said no. I knew he was getting older, and had been having a lot of health problems, plus he smoked and drank a lot. But he has had many health scares before, and we had almost been expecting him to die for the past five years as he was a shell of himself physically. I had sort of adopted the mindset that he would die at any moment, but would he ever actually?
I was not close with my grandpa. I saw him two or three times a year and mostly for holidays or family reunions. He was not a very emotionally expressive person and I am. So I was not close to him. But in his own way, I think he loved me. He kept my family’s pictures hanging in the shop. He bought my sisters and I extra cushioned pads for the butts of our rifles when my dad told him the kick was hurting our young shoulders.
He was always giving things to others who needed them. My aunt told us of the time he went and searched for a fan for her house because she didn’t have one during a hot spell.
I saw him cry when his second wife died ten years ago. I clearly remember his puffy red eyes, his trembling lips. He loved her.
In his own way, he tried to show love to others, even if he struggled to communicate it sometimes.
To me, at twenty-two, seventy-five seems ancient. But it’s not. I am almost one third of his age when he died. My dad is currently two thirds of his age. Hopefully I will live to be older if I don’t smoke, but I don’t know how long I will live. I won’t know when I lived one half or one third of my life. I don’t know how much time I have left. In fact, none of us know how much time we have left.
My grandpa probably knew he did not have many years left. But I am not sure if he cared. His wife had died, and his body was ageing and deteriorating. Though physically he couldn’t do much, he continued to be generous with both his time and his money. I assume that I have many years left, but how do I want to live my last few years? How do I want to live all the years of my life?
