January 9, 2010

Death is a scary thing. It's one of the biggest mysteries in the world-- what REALLY happens afterwards? Nobody really knows. Sure... we believe things, I believe things, but nobody really knows for an actual scientific fact that there is indeed a life after death or a heaven or a hell or a purgatory or whatever.

And since Death is such a great mystery, you would think that people would spend most of their lives trying to figure out things about it. But the irony is, nobody ever thinks about it. We spend our entire lives, day by day, working towards that one fateful day of Death, but live as though we will live forever.

The only people who pay attention to Death are those whom Death touches.

I am paying attention to death because I know someone who will soon taste it.
My grandpa is eighty-nine years old and has been spending that last three years waiting for his deathbed. Now, he and most everyone else is convinced that that he will soon take his last breath in that deathbed. It could be today or next Friday, but it will be soon-- at least that's what all the nurses say, and they know more about deathbeds than anybody.

Tomorrow we leave out for Pennsylvania to comfort my grandpa's family... and ourselves. I'd like to say goodbye to him. He won't remember me-- he's way too lost in confusing memories and blurs in his past to remember his grandson that really never spent much time to get to know him.

I never knew my grandpa well, and I've never regretted it until now, now that I won't have a grandpa to get to know anymore.

And this is why I need to say goodbye to him. It's not for him-- it's for me. I need to feel like I cared about him enough to say goodbye to him and that I care for him. And this all needs to happen before he dies.
I'm not sure if I'll miss him or not. He played the ukelele for me and told me stories about his tour through Italy during World War Two. Ever since I remember he's been hunched, wrinkly, and white. To think that he wasn't always like that. I wish I could have heard more stories, or let him teach me more songs on the piano and ukelele. But that won't happen anymore.

Death is tragic.