Mixed emotions emerge and all I want to do is suppress them all. My Granddad is dying; really he has been dying for a couple years now from Alzheimers. Part of me feels that Granddad died when he forgot who I was or even before that when he lost the personality and spunk he used to have. I didn't think I would react much when I got the expected call saying he has hours to live but I did. I didn't break down and fall to pieces but my heart hurt. I feel the mourning begin there, like tears without the water and salt.
Guilt because I have not recently visited the shell that once was my Granddad. Sadness for many reasons. Joy that he will very soon be with God and his wife. Joy that he will no longer be in pain. Joy that he has had a good and long life
I recently heard the saying, "Everytime an old person dies, a library burns." With Poppop I spoke to him many times about his childhood, how he met Nana, being in WWII and many more things. I was familiar with the "books" in his "Library". I never had that with Granddad. I didn't know him well, not for lack of trying but because I wasn't around him except a week every summer. I didn't even know where to begin asking him about his youth. Well now all those stories, those memories die with him. For that too I mourn.
(I think that is why I write and journal, it is my earthly immortality. I wonder what God thinks of that. Is that arrogance and pride or is it ok?)
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