So many times I've sat here and tried to write this post, but it never seems to come out right. It's never eloquent enough, or never emotional enough, just never enough if you get what I mean. I want to write this, even though I'm fairly sure that no one will ever see it, just in case. Grief is a fact of life, same as death is a fact of life. Whenever you face it for the first time, it hits you like a round of 10 punches to the face. I'm not sure about any other times, I've been lucky enough to only be dealing with it for the first time round right now.
Last year on October 7th 2014, my Grandad died. There wasn't really any warning, he wasn't unwell for a very long time, and I knew he didn't want to die. Just after it happened I came across a quote that said "if you could live on love, you would have lived forever." If that had been the case, he would still be here now, he would have been invincible. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. And on that Tuesday morning, my world collapsed around me. Sounds dramatic, but that is what it was like.
We all moved in to the house we live in now, on the same day when I was 9 months old, and ever since then aside from two or three days here and there, he had always been sat in his special red chair. 22 years. Then suddenly he wasn't. For months I was angry, then I was devastated. Then I thought I was almost out the other side of it, until the other day when I realised I have been in denial this entire time. I was standing at his graveside and suddenly realised I'd been thinking this was a temporary situation, I'd been thinking that in a years time, he would be back in his special red chair and the last year, weekly visits to the cemetery, everything, would just be a memory.
What I'm trying to say is that, it's been a year and I'm still no where near near the 'acceptance' stage all the leaflets talk about. But also, I know now its okay to not be at that stage yet. Everyone reaches that stage in their own time. Yes there will still be moments when I get angry and lash out at people, or moments where I break down and cry. Sadly there will be moments when I forget and expect him to be standing in the kitchen making tea while I'm making some toast, telling me about something he read in his newspaper. But like I said, all of those things are okay. Because eventually I will be okay. I'll miss him, and he will be in my heart and my thoughts forever. But one day they'll be only happy memories. All I can do now is try to keep making him proud of me, so he can point down from the heaven version of his little red chair and say, to the person next to him, "that's my daughter, my two grandchildren and my great grandchild down there, they make me the proudest I could ever be."
