Grandpa

On June 15, 2005, my Dad's dad, Roger, died from an aggressive form of brain cancer that took him to God within a matter of 2 months. He is the only person whom I've been really close to that has passed on, and it was really hard for me to deal with. His death marks the beginning of a really difficult chapter of my life, and I remain thankful for every experience I had with him.

Tonight I was working at Kroger and an elderly couple came through the line, and the old man had a sweet smile and pale blue eyes. You could tell although they were in their seventies, they were still completely in love with each other. They were almost ready to check out, and the old man said, "Wait! I forgot the most important thing!" and he shuffled over to the floral shop and bought a bouquet of alstromeria for his wife. She asked him what "young thing" he was buying them for, and he responded with a wink. You could tell it was a routine they had been through many, many times.

Looking at them looking at each other reminded me of how my grandpa used to look at my grandma. He used to buy her flowers from Aldi's every week, and at that moment when I was scanning the flowers for the elderly couple in my Kroger line, I was blindsided with the overpowering urge to start crying. It was like for 30 seconds, I missed my grandpa every bit as much as the day we buried him. It was the weirdest thing ... I haven't felt upset about his death for a really long time, and it was like seeing that older couple still head over heels for each other made the wound fresh all over again. I had to turn around and pretend I was putting a new roll of tape in the credit card machine in order to compose myself and stop the tears. Even now I'm on the verge of bawling.

Every now and then the feelings of loss I thought were long past pop up again.

This is my favorite picture of him and I, and I know I'm only about 3 in this picture but I've always thought it was really cute.



It's been a pretty emotional week. I haven't been sleeping well at all ... I only get about 3-4 hours of sleep a night, and then try to nap a little during the day when my eyes start burning from tiredness. This week has been a perpetual groggy haze of conflicting emotions.

On a brighter note, Rob is coming to church with me tomorrow and is going to try to bring his girlfriend and his girlfriend's sister. If you see him with me, come say hi!! I think he would really appreciate it, and I have this gut feeling that he would be a great asset to the body of Central if he decides to stay. He is already trying to recruit people to come to church (from Kroger) and he's only been there once.

Anyway, I'm going to try to get some good sleep ... I think I really need it. Classes start on Monday and I need to be able to function at least on some kind of academic level. =)