Posts tagged christmas

This was a previous question of the day, but I just thought of another thing that I’d do over again if I could. Going over to my aunts, on my father’s side, for Christmas this year got me thinking about this.

My grandmother (on my fathers side again) passed away in 2001, a couple months after I graduated. At the time, emotionally, I don’t think I was equipped to handle something like that happening. She had been in a lot of pain, so really it was probably a good thing she passed when she did, because she didn’t have to suffer anymore. I remember visiting her house after graduation because she wasn’t able to make it in my cap and gown so that she could see. Even seeing her like that was rough for me.

When she died, like I said, I don’t think that at the time I was emotionally equipped to handle something like that. I didn’t attend her funeral. To be sure…I was grieving, but, I guess I was doing it privately. Looking back on it now, one of my past regrets would be that I never attended her funeral. While I really wouldn’t want to go back and live through that again, now I wish I had done it differently. I know it may have seemed to some like I didn’t care. But…when nobody was around, I could have been described as a wreck. And to this day and, if I have anything to do with it, as long as I live, I still have the graduation card she sent me as well as the last card I received for my birthday, and I’m not one to keep cards forever. But for these two objects, I’ll make an exception. In fact, I just found them in less than 30 seconds of searching, which…given my storage system (also known as the “Pile-O-Junk”), says something I guess.

What brought this all up today was that my Aunt had made some copies of pictures of my grandfather and grandmother. My grandfather passed away when I was very little, so I never really got to know him. But seeing that picture brought back a ton of memories of going over to her house when I was young. I mentally walked myself through the entire house, remembering the fun I had there and what she was like when she was alive.

This year was the sixth Christmas where we didn’t meet at her house and where she wasn’t there. Life moves on, people continue on their way…but it never hurts to take a look back at the people who are no longer a part of our lives…at least in the physical sense.

I’m not looking for sympathy or anything by writing this or anything. It’s just something that I needed to get off my chest. And now it’s off. So I’ll stop typing. Now.