final death post: the aftermath

the closer we got to home the harder it was. gab had already told the kids that grandpa had died and i had no idea how they would be. both of my kids are and have always been extremely close to him. Magda used to call him "boyfriend" and he called her "girlfriend" and he would give her the moon.

He would sit on the floor with jude and play cars with him, always taking the one jude wanted and then laughing when jude would yell at him for cheating. He also was teaching Jude how to use tools and because of Grandpa, Jude could identify all the screwdrivers and different tools in Grandpa's box.

We picked mom up in lexington and she rode the rest of the way home with us. When we got to town she wanted to see the kids, I was not sure if that was the best idea but complied. As soon as she walked in the house, Magda ran into her arms and they collapsed on the couch holding each other and sobbing. No words at all. Jude rounded the corner and said "aw man, when dad told me about grandpa dying, i didn't cry one bit". 

A few minutes later he said "hey wait, when my dinosaur breaks again, who is gonna fix it?" he knew grandpa was the great fixer and was realizing how HIS life would be affected. He continued to rattle off things that would have to be thrown away because Grandpa couldn't fix them anymore.

I looked at my front door with Mel's tools still sitting near it and cried silently. The first few weeks it was a sad reminder and now more than a month out, it comforts me and makes me think of that day he had everyone standing around looking at it and we all laughed about how "many senior citizens does it take to install a front door?"

Jude never did cry about Grandpa dying but the following Monday he cried about EVERYthing else. He cried about me choosing out the wrong shirt for him, he cried because I made his toast wrong, he cried when i took him to school, he cried because his stomach hurt..Easier to deal with those issues than what was really upsetting him I suppose. Magda on the other hand, went head first into her sadness, sobbed uncontrollably and released it. By Monday she was ready for school and some normal kid stuff. 

I think I took more of Jude's approach, I'm not much of a head first into my emotions type of woman. I admire those who can do that.

so here we are over a month later, heading into the official Holiday season (and his birthday would have been this month). still sad but not quite as "fogged" over as i have been. the Earth keeps on spinning.

2009 has taken:

1. Mel

2. aunt ruth

3. Grandma Blanche 

4. Jill Bane (local young woman who fought cancer for 9 months)

5. Sammy Sartoris (good friend's little brother 17 yrs old)

6. Jeff Roberts (gab's good friend and rolltender only 33 yrs)

7. Hunter Gerdes (10 year old local boy who fought lukemia for 9 months)

8. Kathleen McLean (brother in law's mum)

9. Farrah Fawcett

10. Patrick Swayze

11. Michael Jackson

12. Bea Arthur

13. Billy Mays

14. David Carradine (Bill)

15. ed mcmahon

16. dj am

17. dom deluise

18. John Hughes

19. Natasha Richardson