An Open Letter To My Papaw

My papaw has been gone a month…

It’s been a rough time for my whole family to deal with, some more than others. I’m only saying that because I don’t know how my northern families are dealing with it so I apologize if that statement offended you.

I’ve managed to keep quiet on the subject because despite being the writer in the family, I can’t produce the words to explain how I’ve been feeling. Truth be told, I’ve been fine. I know my papaw is someplace where he’s no longer in pain, but I do miss him dearly. I just deal with things differently. I’m a very strong person. I’ve realized that I’m more like my dad than I thought. I’ve managed to control my emotions a little better than certain family members but there’s a reason for it.

In the past, anytime somebody has died whether I went to school with them, were a family friend, or a celebrity I’ve been sort of quiet on the whole thing. I’ve talked about this a couple of times on here that I believe in recarination but I also believe in the fact a person is never really gone. The memories you have of them will immortalize them and so they’re not really gone for good. For some people, this might be a sign of denial but this is my belief and it’s the reason why I’ve been able to control my emotions and most important my thoughts.

I really didn’t grieve like everybody else, which is normal and I know that, but it’s still the fact I’ve only cried probably four time in the last thirty days.

I do have a funny, but interesting story though. Growing my whole family, including my papaw has always believed that their house is haunted. The upstairs and part of their living room just gives some eerie feelings when you go into a certain area. Sleeping over there, especially on the couch that is directly below the staircase isn’t good for my paranoia at all. Anyways, the other night I had a dream where my papaw showed up and literally scared the shit out of me. He stood in the corner and never spoke, just winked which is always something that he did with me. One of my last memories is of him in his bed at the nursing home, when we brought him his pizza he winked at me when I smiled at him. Something that has bothered me since then is that I never told him I loved him. I was still hopeful that he was going to come home and I didn’t think he would hear me anyways, so I just didn’t say it.

Also, another thing that we used to do as kids. Whenever it turned 11:11 my mom would always say “hi papaw” it was just something she did, whether or not she was talking about her dad or her papaw I still don’t know! She recently told my sister and I that she hasn’t seen a 11:11 since everything happened. I’ve seen tons of times, especially anything trains too! Everytime I see it though, I’ve stopped making wishes and just say “hi papaw” now. It actually makes me feel better when I notice it too.

I actually feel a lot better now that I’ve been able to let it all out today. I’ve held a lot in that I feel I should have talked to somebody, especially my friend Sammy who’s been for me since January when he was going through the dementia and all that. This weekend we have his furenal service and I feel like I’ve had my peace with it. I feel bad saying that out loud but I just feel like in the way that we’re doing it, he wouldn’t want that. He’d want everybody around each other, sharing stories and pigging out since that’s what he looked forward everytime we had family over. It’s just going to be weird again knowing he’s not going to pop in because we were getting too loud.

Oh, I’ve stop here. I’ve cried three times while writing this. I’m also not checking my spelling and all that for this post. If I look over it, I’ll never push publish. Sorry.

Meghan.