Last stop this town

Well, my grandfather died. That's why I've been MIA lately - he passed away Thursday morning, and the funeral was this past weekend.

KB, Nolan and I drove down Saturday and stayed with my mom. The viewing was on Sunday and the mass and interment were Monday. Then we drove back yesterday.

It wasn't unexpected, his death, given that I was posting about how sick he was almost a year ago, but then it wasn't exactly welcomed either. I'm glad that he's not suffering anymore, but then, he's not really anything anymore, is he? He's just not. He's not there. I think about how weird it is sometimes when I look at Nolan and wonder where he came from. I mean, I know WHERE he came from, I know it quite intimately, you could say, but I find it so astonishing that there didn't used to be this little person, and now all of a sudden there is. And that's the opposite of what happened to Pop. There used to be this person who was a father and a grandfather and a great-grandfather and an accountant and a teacher and a WWII veteran and a diabetic and all these other things, and now he's not anymore. He's not anything. He's just not.

The mass, the viewing, my family...all that is just...whatever. It was what it was. We spent a lot of time in the car and a lot of time eating and a lot of time saying things like, "Hey, [fill in name here]! How are you? Gee, I guess I haven't seen you since...Grammy's funeral."

It wasn't as bad as Grammy's funeral in that we were prepared for this, we knew it was coming, we were as ready for it as you can ever be ready for the death of someone you love. But it was still awful.

I'm glad we went down, though.

I'll miss Pop.

Thanks for reading.