so close

Happiness and Sadness. I am still overwhelmed by the response to my last post. Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your encouraging words and your support! It does feel really really good to read all of your comments, I rely on that more than I should.
The same day I posted that, my grandfather died. We’ve seen it coming and it is still a blow.
Sadly I never had much of a relationship with my granddad. He couldn’t really relate to kids very much and to me he always seemed distant. I wish I had made more of an effort to understand who he really was. He fought in WWII, was a salesman by heart, hardworking and honest. He managed the office for my dad until well into his Eighties and, when we had to take that away from him because he was mixing things up more and more, he always regretted having become so “useless”.
He and my grandmother were together for nearly 60 years. How does life go on after losing that one person that you spent all your life with?

In the end, I think the general feeling is that all is as it should be. He lived to be 91. He was ok physically and not in pain. His mind had been clouding over more and more in recent years but he was home until the end and not in a nursing home. He seemed to sense it. In recent weeks he used to cry bitterly whenever my father left again after a visit and he used to tell my grandmother (as she told me) that he hoped she knew that “he had always liked her very much and still does”. By stroke of luck my aunts and my dad were both present when he had to be rushed to hospital and they got to be with him before his operation. He never regained consciousness after the operation but still seemed to wait for my dad to come back (who went to stay with his girlfriend for a week, whose mother had just died) and my grandma and my aunt to be by his side to draw his last breath.
A good way to go after a good life, I believe. Still sad.

Thank you for reading and I promise to be back with the non-therapeutic posts soon.

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