My grandpa unexpectedly passed away early this morning. He was 84 years old. To say that today was a rough day would be an understatement. I was woken up by the phone call with the devastating news. I got dressed and went straight to my grandma's where the family was gathering before I really had a chance to cry ugly. I had no comforting words to offer my grandma, dad, aunt and uncles, so I just gave each of them a tight hug. Those hugs probably meant more than words could say anyway. It was unbearably difficult to hold it together in front of my grandma, but I tried my best. I didn't want to make her more upset, but I'm not sure if she could be more upset than she was. I know how much I'm hurting and I can't even begin to know how much more painful this is for grandma, dad, aunt diane, uncle mike and uncle don( grandma's kids). We reminisced, but mostly grandma was concerned about how to pay bills and do other things around the house. My dad, aunt and uncles were concerned about funeral arrangements, burial arrangements and when to go through grandpa's things. We grand kids were kind of left feeling helpless because we don't yet know what to do to help the adults figure this out.
The whole idea of the heart surgery was to help him live longer. I should have prayed harder. It sucks because he would have lived longer without the heart surgery. How could anyone have known that. Just goes to remind me that life is fragile.
Later in the morning I text all of my close friends to call me when they got a chance. I wanted them to know before I posted it for all of my friends to see on facebook. One by one, as those calls came in I stepped outside of grandma's house and walked down the driveway to the sidewalk so that no one would have to listen to the news again or hear me break down. Thank God for caring friends with loving hearts. Too damn bad they're all far away. I cried most of the day today. Headaches from crying are the worst. Obviously, it's understandable, but I can't help feeling depressed. I'm not even in denial about it. There are two ways I know to combat depression: medication and running. Since I'm not a big fan of doctors and meds, I think it's time to start thinking about starting to run again.
I'm hoping to write a post about Grandpa Ace soon but until then here's the story of why I call him Grandpa Ace. We grand kids call him Poppa Ace or Grandpa Ace. He always used to say, "Hey, Ace.," to everyone. So, his brother Len got us to call grandpa "Grandpa Ace" from a very early age and it just kind of stuck. We called them grandpa and grandma Ace and that's how we distinguished between my mom and dad's parents. Len calls grandpa "Shoulders" and I'm not really sure of the story behind that nickname, but the tone in which he says it is filled with brotherly love.
