Grandpa's Funeral

Yesterday marked the funeral of my grandfather, my father's father, which ended up being an extremely numbing day. My grandpa, my father's father, was always a very distant and closed person, as are the five children he raised. The funeral was challenging and saddening as I watched my father's family gather together, all of them having no ability whatsoever to receive or demonstrate a reaction to any kind of feelings they may have had for their father, their grandfather, their friend.

I realized then and there that while there are many things, some I may never even come to know in my lifetime, that I will continue as my grandfather's legacy, the one legacy that will end with me is the inability to demonstrate love to my child.

At the close of the funeral, as my grandfather's casket was being wheeled down the aisle ahead of us, I felt an overwhelming pain that a part of my history, a piece that I will probably never know, was soon going to be put into the ground and lost forever. My grandfather, while he had brief moments in which he atempted a connection with us, will always be a piece of my puzzle that I will never find.

On the Sunday before he died, hubby and Kaydn Rye and I all went to his little house to see him. This was after we had already visited my other grandfather in the hospital. Just as we were about to walk out the door to church that morning, my mother and my aunt both called to let me know that my grandpa, my mother's father, was in the hospital with sharp chest pains again, for the second time this year.

We raced to the hospital to find that his rheumatoid arthritis in his shoulder is gradually taking over the top right half of his body. Gladly, it was not another heart attack, but it is one of those reminders that my grandfather, one of the most influential people in my life, is almost 90 years old and his body will eventually shut down completely.

But once my grandfather was stabilized, with my other grandpa on his deathbed, we headed to his house to see him, for the last time. It was almost two months ago that we found out that he had terminal lung cancer, which had somehow gone previously undiagnosed. He at one time had prostate cancer, which was taken care of with radiation treatments. So when we found out he had terminal lung cancer, at that time we thought he was in perfect health.

Because the cancer had spread to places we were not even aware of, his body ending up rejecting food, and he essentially ended up starving to death. When we arrived on Sunday he looked, well, he looked like he was already dead, to be just extremely honest. My aunt, who cared for him through the end, told us it would not be long, and after just sitting in my grandpa's living room for I don't know how long, we finally decided to pray and then to leave.

So we prayed, I started to break down a little, and we got up to walk out the door. It was then that I went over to his bed, where he just laid there, too weak to even speak, and I said, "Goodbye grandpa Maynard," as I touched him on the shoulder. That moment, with those brief words and that small touch, was the only real expression of emotion I believe we've ever shared with each other, and it was the last thing I ever said to him.