stars.

i'm starting to become more and more apathetic, but life's good in my drugged haze.

i really do love my life, but sometimes i don't like it. the only people in the whole world i don't get along with are my mother and her side of the family. is that weird? It bums me out to see every friend i have be super close to their mom when i can't be. i'm really really close with my dad though, and without him in my life i have no idea where i'd be now. i think about that all the time; how i would have turned out if i only had my mom in my life. i'm not going to lie, i think i'd be pretty screwed up without him and all of his side of the family to keep me sane.

in two weeks exactly it'll be 8 months that my grandpa's been gone. not a day goes by where i don't think about him or pray for him. since his death i've developed this OCD habit where i can't go to sleep without seeing a star. i read somewhere that an ancient eskimo proverb says that stars aren't really stars, but that they're holes in heaven where the light of our lost ones shines down on use to let us know they're happy & safe. ever since then, i have to see a star somewhere in the sky to know he's happy and safe out there somewhere.

it may sound weird, but i really don't care. it's my own personal way of making sure he's safe & that he knows he's still loved.

to all of you who have never seen someone die, i hope you never have to. i didn't actually see my grandpa die, but i saw his spirit die.

on september 24, 2009 my dad and i were supposed to go see a concert at the house of blues in cleveland. my grandpa had not been feeling well the whole summer, and the doctor's couldn't figure out why. they thought he might have a stomach ulcer, but then the biopsy was negative. in august he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, that had spread to his liver and bile duct. they had to put a stint in to relieve the blockage of his bile duct which was making him super jaundice. anyways, the night of september 24th, my dad and i got a call from my aunt saying that they were at the cleveland clinic ICU and the doctors had given my grandpa only 12 more hours to live.

we rushed to the downtown hospital with my cousin. i'm not going to lie, when my dad told me that my first reaction was that the doctors were wrong somehow, that this wasn't going to really happen. it didn't truly hit me until we walked into the ICU on the 6th floor, to room J6, where my grandpa was. as soon as i saw him, i lost it. i couldn't stop crying. i felt a little embarrassed to be crying instead of trying to be strong for my family. i couldn't help it.

he was laying in a hospital bed, IV's and a blood bag hanging behind him. he had a giant tube down his throat to allow him to breathe, and he was on a breathing machine, even though he could breathe fine on his own. he was heavily sedated because of the enormous amount of pain caused by the cancer that morphine alone couldn't fix. my grandma was at his side praying, and my dad was sitting down, holding his hand and whispering his goodbyes.

when it was my turn to say goodbye for the last time, i didn't know what to say. All i could think of was "hi, grandpa. it's me, amanda." i couldn't bring myself to actually say goodbye. it was too hard. his hands were cold.

for some time everyone went in the waiting room except me, my aunt, and my grandma. i stood next to my grandma, holding my grandpa's cold hand, trying to warm him up while my grandma prayed the prayer of divine mercy. she had placed a small wooden cross over my grandpa's heart and held a rosary in her hand.

the thing that tore me apart the most that night was hearing my grandma's voice crack during one of her Hail Mary's and seeing her sigh, and place her forehead against my grandpa's, and then she started to cry. that cut me so deep to see her in that much pain. it was the most emotional and horrible thing i've ever seen to this day.

i will never, ever forget that night. it's burned into my memory permanently.

my dad eventually made me and my cousin go home. I hugged my grandpa one last time, kissed him on his forhead and said "i love you grandpa, and i'll see you tomorrow. get some rest". it was a thursday night, and my dad had planned for me to go to school the next day. my cousin, Michelle, and i decided to ditch school and go see grandpa in the morning anyways.

it took a while for me to fall asleep, and after praying vigorously, my exhaustion lulled me into a deep sleep. i woke up the next moring at 5:30 AM to my dad knocking on my door to tell me that grandpa was gone. He had died at 5:00 AM.

I couldn't belive he was actually gone. I still can't believe it. I keep thinking that when i go over to my grandma's he'll be there. but he won't be ever again.


i decided to write about this because i need to get it off my chest. I need to write about him so everyone will know what a great man he was, and so his memory will live on.

Now i'm sobbing like a baby, but it was well worth it.

Rest In Peace, Grandpa.
December 24, 1932 - September 25, 2009
I love & miss you. <3