Loss

My grandpa passed away two Saturdays ago. I was sitting at my boyfriend’s kitchen island eating oatmeal and doing a crossword puzzle with him when I saw a call from my mom at 9:27 in the morning. She rarely calls me out of the blue, and especially not on the weekend. As I raised the phone to my ear, I think some part of me already knew what she was calling for. I answer and my mom’s tear-filled voice lets me know her dad - my grandpa - passed away the night before in his sleep and she wanted me to hear it from her.

The first thing I felt was relief. I knew my grandpa hadn’t been doing well for quite some time now and every day of living was increasingly painful for him. I felt like the whole family had been walking around on tiptoes waiting for this to happen, and now that it had, it was like a huge exhale had been released. That feeling only lasted a few seconds before the sadness hit me like a brick wall. But the sadness wasn’t for my grandpa. Of course, I would miss him. I would miss his snarky jokes, his wit, his affinity for card games, his chocolate fudge, and everything he represents, but I knew that this was probably the right time for him. I didn’t feel that he was taken from me prematurely.

Instead, I felt an overwhelming sadness on behalf of my mom. He was the patriarch of that side of the family. I know my mom has always looked up to her dad, taken after him, and that they had a special relationship. I know my mom is in her fifties but in his passing, she’s now an orphan, and that is an overwhelmingly sad thought. She lost her role model, her last remaining parent, and an important connection to her past. I can’t imagine how she feels but even in my own mind, I was grieving the idea of losing a parent.

Furthermore, I mourned the status quo. My mom won’t be the same, that side of my family won’t be the same, and things are in flux. They might not necessarily change for the worse, but my grandpa had a hand in the past but he won’t have a hand in the future, and that is something to grieve as well.

Finally, I felt a smidgen of guilt. Even though I had a good relationship with him, I somehow feel guilty for not changing that relationship when it was clear he was declining. At the time, it felt disingenuous to me. I thought if I started calling more it would basically seem like I was checking up on him to make sure he was still alive, not because that truly felt like how I should interact with him. I will never be able to take that back, and I don’t regret my relationship with him but the guilt is still there - should I have visited more? Should I have called? What could I have done? Now, I’ll never know.

This is only the third loss I’ve ever experienced in my life - the third grandparent - but given my recent mortality crisis, it’s been the most profound.

I used to think loss simply provoked feelings of sadness, of longing, and of nostalgia. But grief is just as complex as any other emotion. It ebbs and flows with different nuances - some that even feel illogical or dramatic. It might hit you powerfully one day and be nearly blissfully absent the next but I’m learning that by letting yourself work through them - whatever they might be - you’re doing the necessary work to honor the person you lost, and yourself.

Sunsets are my favorite metaphor for death. They capture the beauty of the day and leave room for the cycle of the coming sunrise. Photo taken by me in Lake Tahoe July 2021.