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How Do You Mourn the Loss of a Loved One Still Living?
I lost two people this year.
The first, to a courageous battle with pancreatic cancer.
The second, to a difference of opinion.
My grandfather’s death was calculated — anticipated — with well-known odds of survival telling us at every point of his battle with cancer just how little time he had left — six months, three weeks, tomorrow — maybe. Not one of us wanted to say goodbye, but we all knew that it was coming.
He was the single greatest man I ever knew until I met my boyfriend. My opa was a rough-around-the-edges, jack-of-all-trades kind of guy, with a tough exterior wrapped around the heart of a teddy bear.
He had a brilliant mind but never feared getting his hands dirty — a combination that allowed him to rebuild a cherry red ’68 Beaumont entirely on his own. He was stubborn — and worse because he knew it — but absolutely unbending in his devotion to my oma and our family.
I wish we had more time together — I wish I had more time to say the things I should have — but he was ready. And you can’t ask someone to keep holding on when it hurts them.
I lost my boyfriend to a prejudiced opinion — the irrevocable opinion of someone who has never known us together — and, in fact, doesn’t actually know me…
