Saying Goodbye

51 years and a whole lot of grief and loss. I’ve said a lot of goodbyes in my time, but none hurt as much as the ones that I didn’t get to say.

I had a bit of sunshine in the otherwise gloominess of my family life, they were my grandparents. When my grandfather passed when I was in my early 20’s, it was a blow like no other. I knew that he was sick, but he was one of those people who I thought would live forever. My superhero.

He passed when he was away visiting family out of town, he knew that he didn’t have long. I suppose that deep inside, I knew too. I remember that he was feeling pretty awful, and getting grumpy in his later days. When I went to their house, my only real home in my younger years, I was avoiding him. I always felt so regretful after he died. If only I had spent that time more wisely If only I had sat down and had more conversations with him. He was so wise, I loved that he didn’t sugar coat anything.

He was the one who saved me from them. They had been lying about my behavior, and I picked up the extension and told him that they were lying. It wasn’t long after that they he told me that I could live there. I was 15 years old.

I still remember being told that he had passed. I was on my way to my mother’s house for a visit. As I was rounding the corner almost at their street, they were driving toward me. They just stopped and told me to go to my Grandparent’s house. Wouldn’t tell me why.

When I got there, my Grandma opened the door and gave me a hug and saying that she was sorry. I remember kind of pushing her arms off of me and standing back, asking what she was sorry for? I was in total denial of what was happening. When she told me that he was gone, I went numb. The house was already full of people, and I went to the basement. I didn’t get to say goodbye. Not a last hug, just nothing.

For the longest time it didn’t really hit me. He worked out of town when I was younger, or he was at camp after he retired, so it just felt like he was on a trip. I think that it took me years to finally fully feel that he was gone.

My Grandma was another story entirely. She was my everything. All of the things that my mother wasn’t for me, she was. All of the love and affection that my mother couldn’t give, my Grandma gave me tenfold. She made every moment special when I was a little girl. When my Grandfather died, she went off the deep end.

She was what they called a closet alcoholic. Most people never even knew that she drank. It got worse as I got older, and when she lost him, she couldn’t control it anymore.

Despite being in and out of the hospital, many times on the edge of death, she outlived him by another seven years or so. I wasn’t there when she passed. I received a cold phone call from my mother, telling me that my Grandma had died. She didn’t have much to say. Thankfully I had met who would be my husband of 20 years, just six months prior. I cried in his lap. His family consoled me, as I spent our first Christmas with them just days later.

My Father wasn’t a huge physical presence in my life once they had divorced, but I was a Daddy’s girl, and when I was able to spend time with him we made it count.

We hadn’t spoken in several years, after a falling out when my other Grandma had passed. I had already felt very abandoned by him most of my life, when my Grandma passed away my niece was left out of the obituary. She was the first Great Grandchild on that side of the family, and as it was her own father wasn’t present. I did not want her thinking that she was forgotten. When I protested about the omission, he stood behind it, due to the fact that he had never met her.

That was when the floodgates opened, and I unleashed everything that I had ever held back saying for all of my years. I ended the call telling him that he should just go and do what he does best, which is fuck all nothing!

I didn’t speak to him again until about ten yeas later, when I got a message from my Aunt telling me that he had terminal cancer, and asking if I would be willing to speak with him.

I did, and planned a trip to see him for two weeks. The trip had it’s highs and lows, but I was glad that I had spent the time with him, and he met my daughter. From the day that I got the message, we spoke every day. Until he wasn’t answering my messages anymore.

Then I got the call… He was already very sedated, he wasn’t expected to last much longer. I’m not sure if he heard or understood me, but I asked his wife to put the phone by his ear and I told him that I loved him, that I would be ok, that he fought long enough, and he could let go.

And all of that was just my rehearsal for the big day…

I remember being upset at my father’s wife for how she was managing his care and transition to death. Later on I was regretful for my thoughts, when I had to do the same.

He was such a good man. He loved me in a way that I had never been loved. He was real, he was just himself, and I could be myself.

We built a beautiful life together in those 20 years. It wasn’t always easy, in fact some times it was damn hard, but we always loved each other big through whatever we were going through.

We were just hitting the tail end of the battle that we fought for our child, when he had a heart attack. He was going to be ok and we finished a six and a half year court case. Just when we thought the we were finally in the clear, and settling in again, I had to have him brought in to the hospital again.

After spending a week in the hospital he was discharged to come home. I spoke to him before he went to bed that night, after I had taken our daughter out for Halloween. I can’t remember if I told him that I loved him, we usually told each other, but I can’t remember if I did.

I woke up to him in cardiac arrest at 4:00am in our bed next to me. I was able to keep him alive, but it would later be found that he had a severe brain injury due to the loss of oxygen. The next year of our lives was absolute hell, and I went through most of it alone, with our young daughter in tow.

Nearing the end of that year, they found a new mass on his brain, and I sat with him and watched him die over the next two weeks. I don’t know how many times I told him that it was ok to stop fighting, or how many times I told him that I loved him, and that we would be ok. I don’t know if he heard or understood me…

This brings me to this past Christmas. I was finally in a good place again, having met someone who I was really happy with, just a couple of weeks prior. What was left of our family was getting together for dinner that day.

I wish that I could say that I was surprised. I wish that I could say that this was the first time that this has happened. But then I would be lying…

Through a blow up from another family member, it came to light that everything that I was confiding in them, was being shared with that other family member. They had been talking behind my back. If that wasn’t bad enough, they were doing it while I was going out of my way to help them.

There had been many other times that we had gone no contact before, but this was different. I was done being a people pleaser, I was already wrung out and exhausted, trying to put my own life back together, and I sure wasn’t going to keep doing it with an anchor tied around my neck.

I took my child and left that house. I didn’t say goodbye to them, and I won’t.