Sunday, January 10, 2010

Grandpa

Here I sit.  It's Sunday evening and I have a goal to blog every week.  This week there is so much to say, yet very little that I actually want to verbalize to the world. 

My grandfather died this week.  My grandpa has been ill for a long time. Once my Grandma died, his will to live was gone. He had multiple strokes and little medical care. My Aunt lived with him and did her best to care for him.  I took my children to see him just about a week ago and knew then that it sould probably be the last time I would see him alive.


It is a bitter sweet death for me.  I have very mixed emotions about him being gone.  Although, I know it would mortify my Mom that I am telling the world, I think I need to get these feelings out.  My grandpa was mostly a normal grandpa.  He taught me to ride a bike.  He always did the grocery shopping, sometimes he took me grocery shopping with him, and if I was good, we would stop for McDonalds.  He let me trim his beard.  He built me a swingset.  My Mom and Dad are divorced so he was the one that fixed things around our house and shoveled the sidewalks in the winter.

What a lot of people don't know is that my granfather was an alcoholic.  He would drink every other day.  All day every other day.  On those days, he wouldn't eat a morsel of food and sometimes he was mean.  Mostly, he was just obnoxious.  On many occasions, my grandfather touched me innappropriately.  I'm not sure what age it started but I know it didn't end until I was a teenager.  This also happened to my sister, I know because we have talked openly about it.  I told my Mom once about my sister and she didn't want to believe it.  I never told her about myself.  It is so much easier to talk about others than to admit it happened to you too.  I am grieving for my Mom losing the father she believed he was and yet, I can't wait to see his coffin in the ground. 

My sister lives in another state and isn't coming for the funeral.  She is pregnant and doesn't want the stress.  I can't blame her for that and yet I am angry with her for not being here with me.  I am upset with myself for not having the strength to talk to him about Jesus and not knowing whether he is in Heaven with much of me believing he must be in Hell.

I am sad that I have lost my grandpa and yet relieved that the man he was every other day is finally gone.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey, blogging every other week can be super healthy for you. Good job.
All of this makes total sense. Do you feel better having written it all out? Isn't life way more complicated than we ever thought it would be?

All I can think is just, take this all to God, dump it at His feet, and ask for peace. For as many days as it takes. Be honest with Him this week about how you feel about everyone involved. He can do anything.

h_borgers said...

I am praying for you and your family. I pray for peace in your heart and mind. Let me know if I can help you out. Just know you are always in my thoughts!

"The Menu Mom" said...

Wow... That is heavy, but good too. I have given A LOT of thought lately about being transparent among friends - I find it to be a very good thing and yet a very scary thing too. I commend you for being transparent.

I'm praying for you. God is good and will uphold you - rely on Him! If you need anything PLEASE let me know!

C-