Anticipation

Today at 10:45am we are flying up north to the San Francisco/Sonoma County area to visit my family. As you might recall if you read yesterday’s post, my grandpa is very sick and has now stopped eating and drinking. Yesterday he was moved to a hospice facility and is sleeping the majority of the time….which suggests that this is not something that he is going to recover from. As the body shuts down people often lose their appetite and then their interest even in drinking water, so it’s very possible that we only have a few days with him left…..I am trying to accept this in stride. But honestly, I still don’t believe that this is real. It still doesn’t seem like it’s actually going to happen. I keep expecting him to recover or magically get better and as much as I have tried to prepare myself for this inevitability there is a part of me that will be in denial until it actually happens. I haven’t had much experience with “normal” death, death from old age. My experiences with death have been tragic and sad and untimely; I have not lost a close family member since my father suddenly passed. And so I don’t really know what to expect, and that sense of the unknown is what makes all of this so scary. What will he look like? What will he sound like? Will he be awake? Will he know who I am? When there is something that I do not understand or have not experienced, the anticipation of the event is almost always worse than when it actually happens, and so I am hoping that this will be the case with grandpa. I am hoping that tomorrow when we go to see him he will be calm and comfortable, sleeping and peaceful. I hope that I will be able to say goodbye and that when he does pass I can focus on the beautiful amazing long life that he led and not on these last few days. I hope that I can be more like Little C who knows nothing of sadness when it comes to death.

I will keep you guys updated as best as I can. If I miss a few days in the coming week(s), my apologies in advance. Like I said I have no clue how I will handle his passing and so I just want to give you all a heads up just in case my posts are less consistent. Much love to all of you. Enjoy your day, enjoy your life. We only get one.