Goodbye Grandpa Jim

    Waiting with Grandpa.  He hasn’t spoken since I arrived.  Family has filled the room, and the mood rises and falls faster than the waves outside.  I barely recognize this man, surrounded by love.  His face is thin, his eyes empty, absent the expression and humor I knew.
    My brother is holding his hand, and has been diligently for hours.  Holding his other hand, I watch and listen to his breath.  Long pauses send fear into my chest.  It tightens, becomes hard to breathe.  Then he gasps again, and I too can breathe again.  We all know it is coming, but still I dread.
    Everyone else here is discussing heaven and faith.  About how they know where Grandpa is going, and how they’ll see him again one day.  This talk makes me feel all the more alone.  I’ve had my issues with faith, and in moments like this, I wish I could have it and the comfort it seems to bring.  But I don’t feel it.  Where everyone else feels God in the room, I just feel the grief, and the love that binds us.
    As the hours pass, everyone talks, catches up.  I wonder if it feels as hollow to them as it does to me.  I understand why we’re doing it, to not feel alone in this, to remind us we are still a family, still have love.  Yet I can’t help think that very soon, there will be less love in this world, and one fewer person who loves me.
    Grandpa taught me how to fish.  He had a boat on the Oregon Coast, in fact he ran a charter business for fishing and whale watching.  We’d go out, my dad, brother, Grandpa and I, and fish.  My dad and brother would always get sick, but I never did.  I’d inherited Grandpa’s sea legs, and I was always so proud to be the only one that did.  It was something that was just ours.  While everyone else was passed out sick, we’d still be fishing.
    It’s been a long time since then.  
    My dad gets up to run down to the store, but as he reaches the door Grandma calls for him to wait.  We all know.  Suddenly, he is surrounded by everyone.  There are words and prayers, and so many tears, and then he is gone.
    Grandma is wailing, my head is spinning, my body shaking.  We knew it was happening, yet still it shocks us.  A wife is hugging her husband’s lifeless form, a son is comforting his own sons, and I am useless.
    Not long after, I leave.  I have things to do, things I could probably cancel, but I want to be alone.  I feel selfish and horrible.  I hate myself a little more with each passing mile as I drive through the dark.