Holding On

abbystran
Jun 22, 2017
2 min read

These past few months have been really hard. Watching GrandPaul suffer has been more than I thought I could handle. Mom and Aunt Julie have been up here for weeks now. Irene has hardly left his side. Just a couple weeks ago, he was talking to me and having conversations, albeit short conversations. On the 18th, he was sleeping and that was it; his breathing was labored, he would wake up from pain and couldn’t even speak. Irene would jump up as soon as he woke up just to make sure he knew she was there. She would say over and over again, “I love you I love you,” and you could tell that he wanted to say it back but he physically couldn’t. He was in pain and you could see it – he would jerk in seizure-like motions and wince and moan, and we couldn’t do anything about it. It was so very terrible to watch but how could I leave?

His funeral was just as hard. It made me realize how little I actually knew this man, which was hard to admit to myself because he and I were so close and we had a bond that everyone acknowledged. But people were reminiscing, telling stories about Paul’s life and I got decently angry at the fact that I had never heard those stories from him. I was mad that I had started to communicate with him via letters and emails only nine years ago. Granted, he lived in Florida for all of my life and him and my mom never had the greatest of relationships. But still… I wish I had put in more effort than I already had. I hate to say this… but I was mad that Irene was in the position she is: his wife of three years. How do you get to be the one that receives the flag that was folded in his honor? Or the bullet shells shot in his name? But I can’t be upset at her…she was with him through this whole process. She slept on a couch the whole time he was in hospice. How can I be mad at that? I can’t be…

I realize that all of these other emotions are just coming up because I’m sad. And I’m excruciatingly sad. The fact that he’s gone doesn’t really make sense right now. But I will rest in the comfort of the knowledge that he is no longer in pain and that he is with God.

It will take time, I know.