When you get bad news on your birthday…
what do you do? How do you handle it? Do you let yourself wallow in sadness? Or do you try and suck it up and enjoy your day? I don't know the answer. All I know is that my stepgrandmother called and left us a message while we were out that said my only surviving grandparent is going on hospice on Monday. So, the end is near for him. He's all the way in Texas, so I don't know how I would get to him. And I don't know if I should try, because really I can only make one trip out there, and I doubt he would recognize me or know I was there. I'm trying to decide if I should do that, or if I should go for the funeral and be there for my cousins who have lost both their parents already. I'm thinking that being there for my cousins is the right answer. I don't know, though, if there really is a right answer. I wish…what do I wish? I wish I could have seen him before he got so bad he wouldn't recognize me? Of course. I wish that he had lived closer so I could see him more often? Of course. I wish that I had realized at a younger age how important he was to me? Absolutely. I wish that my mom was around to help me deal with this? Positively. But now, they will be together…the little family…my grandparents, my uncle, my mom. Reunited. So…only me and my cousins will be left. His granddaughters. The four of us. What do I do? What do I say? I don't know. I just know it's a lot to take in today. But I have to. It's part of being an adult, right? You have to deal with losing people you love. So, I will sit back and remember all the happy times I spent with him, and send him thoughts of love across the miles. I have a feeling he will know that I'm thinking of him. And he knows that my mom and my uncle and my grandmother are waiting for him, so he needs to let go. That's what I told my mom. Just let go. We'll be all right. We will. Won't we?
