The grieved do not know we do it.
When my grandfather passed away during the winter of my sophomore year, I didn’t get the chance to say goodbye. One morning, I woke up to being told he was taken to the hospital overnight and it didn’t look good. Four days later, I missed three calls from my mom and two from my dad.
I knew something was up, because my dad doesn’t usually call me.
When I called my mom back, I knew by the breath she took that he was gone.
“Okay,” I said.
It was the only response I could give her.
I quickly got off the phone and called my dad.
There was only one thing I could say to him.
“I’m so sorry,” I said.
I think for a minute, I forgot I was grieving too. This was the first time in my adult life that I was experiencing grief. When I was younger, my great-grandfather passed away and I had cats we had to put down, but I wasn’t truly old enough to understand what was happening the way I did that day.
My dad passed the phone to my aunt and my grandmother, but still, I could only mutter the words, “I’m so sorry.”
My grandmother reminded me how much my grandfather loved me and how proud he was of me every day.
When I talked to my mom again, I asked her if I needed to come home. He passed away the Saturday before finals week. There was no way I was going home.
They didn’t tell anybody he passed until all his grandchildren– me, my two siblings and our two cousins– were told. The funeral would be held when we all got back from school.
When my mom picked me up, we stopped at my grandparent’s-grandmother’s house on the way back. While everyone had had time to sit where he did and process his death, I was just beginning.
I cried a lot and didn’t say much. There was nothing more to say.