2024/07/03
My grandpa died this month.
Both him and my grandmother (or "pappa" and "nanny" as well call them irl) having been living across from us ever since we moved here, so we saw them quite frequently. I probably didn't visit them as much as I should, but now I really regret not doing so. He was diagnosed with cancer fairly recently, so I thought we had all the time in the world to spend time a bit of time with him.
Turns out I was wrong.
A few days before her passed, he had to be sent to the hospital while struggling to breathe. My mother alerted me that he probably didn't have a lot of time left and that I should be emotionally ready for him to die soon. The next day, my dad was able to drive there. Right as we found his hospital rooms......we were informed by the rest of our family that he was gone.
He died mere seconds before we arrived.
I had never experienced a death in the family before (at least, not with anyone I knew too well), so this was pretty surreal to go through. I can't describe the heaviness of being in a room full of sobbing, grieving people. The only thing worse is the sound of an elderly wife, wailing because the person they loved is now gone.
After experiencing all of that, I was hoping to have a gentle, uneventful week so that everyone could quietly grieve. And yet for some reason.....my big sister thought it'd be a good idea to come over and spend the week here.
It turned out that my grandma was hosting a party, so that everyone in the neighborhood could come over and help her forget her pain for a while. That's why my sister had decided to come over, mainly to keep her from feeling alone at night.
What felt even weirder to me was that everyone was back to acting normal so quickly. My mom was running around, keeping herself busy, and my sister was all smiles. I was fully prepared for everyone to be distant and sad for a while but for some reason, everything snapped like nothing happened.
And then it was my birthday on Friday, during that very same week.
I don't want to act like my birthday was disappointing. It wasn't! I got to see Furiosa in theaters and my grandmother got me a really cool custom made T-shirt for my birthday, but I can tell that my family was disoriented and has no idea what to do. My younger sister forgot to get me a gift and my older sister was hoping to take me out for dinner in the city, but the whole ordeal postponed that idefinitely.
But I did enjoy my birthday overall. I really don't want to sound ungrateful.
I'm sorry for not writing anything for the last few months. I want to stay committed to this whole web diary thing, but sometimes entire months pass without anything interesting or notable happening whatsoever. That's just how it is.
It's been that way for years.