The Viewing

First things first, I did NOT break down in the funeral home. There were moments, times during it all while hearing people talk about memories of my papaw that I wanted too. I swallowed the tears, put a smile on my face, and foraged through. There were so many people I never knew. Many I knew the names from conversation grandma, grandpa and Duane had around me. Now to see the faces after so many years. People my mom and uncles knew.

I kept the smile on my face despite I didn't want too. My cousin was there with her little one, my uncles, my brother and his woman was there, so wasn't my little brother James.

Yeah I was a little bit of a wallflower, plastering myself at the wall. Papaw looked like papaw though thinner and paler. They had put an afghan that grandma had crocheted with him which I thought appropriate. His medals was by his head. I finally got to see them.

He always wanted to show me those medals, but they were buried beneath so much stuff that he could never find them. Then mom found a picture of him and grandma, about months before grandma died. The picture had to be roughly over ten to even eleven years old. That was in the casket with him.

Since when grandma died (my oldest was just a baby), mom had put a picture of him in the casket with her because she was so excited about being a great grandmother. Well I wanted a picture of my three boys to go with him, he always got them neat things for Christmas. He never really got to know Gabriel but by then he was already diagnosised with Alzheimers.

He thought the world of my oldest. They always called him either Half Pint or Hard Luck because when he came back from the hospital, our area got hit with a massive tornado and for the first three weeks of his life out of the hospital was without electric. Half Pint because he was soooo tiny.

I couldn't help but think of my fond memories of him. Grandma and Grandpa practically raised me when I was a baby while mom and dad worked. I remember how I always loved going and staying the night there.Then how I always wanted to go grocery shopping with him as a child. We'd be in line, and he'd tell me to pick out a candy bar. How when my dad was a prick, refused to pick me up from work, I could always rely on him to do so. He was my staunch defender, he and grandma.

What was neat, I got to meet the woman who introduced my grandma and grandpa. * watery chuckle* I loved hearing her say "Alice was a shy country bumpkin. The two was so very shy."

It just makes me miss my grandma all over again. I know that his physical body is gone,, and that his spirit is with grandma over looking me and the boys, it's just the holidays and life in general won't be the same without him just there.

Since grandma's death, family just seemed to ravel, like the glue had gone out, Grandpa was that thread that kept things from drifting too apart. Now that he's gone, it makes me wonder how far it'll deteriate.