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What my grandfather taught me about grief
My grandfather squeezes my hand and sighs. I look at him and see the sheen of tears in his eyes. We are sitting on my porch, enjoying the unseasonably cool weather in South Carolina. He is staying with me for a week, and we have just spent the last hour reminiscing, as my family tends to do.
He sighs again. I know that he is missing her — that he will always miss her — and right now is one of those moments that both warms his heart and cuts him open. It has been five years, but the grief still stings.
“She waited for you,” he says. He looks at me as he smiles and tightens his grasp on my hand. I squeeze his hand gently in acknowledgment and nod. We sit in silence, both preoccupied with remembering.
On the day my grandmother passed away, I was living two miles outside of Boston. I spoke with my uncle on the phone, and he confirmed that it would not be long. We were losing her. I remember calling my mom as I dragged my suitcase from the closet and threw in clothes —
black pants, a black sweater, and black shoes.
The train was leaving in an hour, and I had to get a taxi and make it to downtown Boston in time to board. When the driver arrived, I explained the situation, and he assured me he would get to the station on time. He kept his promise. As the train hurtled down the tracks to New Jersey, I kept looking at my watch and thinking about her.
My cousin picked me up from the station, and we sped towards my grandparents’ townhouse. I was nervous. When I arrived, I walked into a quiet room. My grandmother was on the bed, no longer conscious, but surrounded by family — my grandfather, three of my uncles, and three of my cousins. I gently touched her hand, so familiar, and held it. I leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I’m here, Grammy” I whispered, and I told her how much I loved her. Not long after that, she took her last breath.
Later, my grandfather told me that Grammy knew I was on my way. He believed she had waited for me, and he recounted this each time I saw him after her death. It was always the same — the same gentle smile, the same tears that glistened in his eyes, the same soft squeeze of my hand, the same moment of remembering. I think it brought comfort to us both, and it forged a connection between us that had not been there before.
It is almost five years after that day on the porch when I get the call from my dad. “I have some sad news.” I catch my breath, already knowing what my dad is going to tell me. “Poppy died last night.”
My grandfather was 91 years old. I am not surprised at this news, but I am still in shock. Nothing can prepare you to lose somebody you love, no matter how long that person’s life has been.
Later that morning, I think of the three-minute voicemails that my grandfather always leaves me, and I grab my phone. I scan my voicemails, hoping that I have one, just so I can hear his voice again. I realize that I don’t — I got a new phone over the summer, and I don’t have a single message from him. I’ll never hear his voice say my name, never hear his warm greeting, never hear his long good-bye again. All of the opportunities I had to pick up the phone and call him are gone. My chest feels heavy with regret. When I talk with my cousin later, I learn that she has done the same.
I can’t help but think that watching Poppy navigate his grief, albeit mostly from a distance, will help me navigate mine.
He accepted sadness and loss as part of his life. It didn’t keep him from living, or even from being happy, but he also didn’t fight it when it came. In those moments of remembering my grandmother’s last day, I witnessed him letting the sadness overtake him. At first, he would apologize for it, not because he was sorry for his emotions, but because he was aware that grief can make others uncomfortable. I always told him not to apologize. Eventually he stopped.
There is an invisible thread this man has woven. That thread binds my family together — from North Carolina to New Jersey to California to Georgia to Washington to Oregon. When I’ve spoken with my cousins, my siblings, my uncle, and my dad, we seem to be experiencing similar emotions. We are remembering him in our own ways, but our actions have a familiar echo.
The memory that has resurfaced again and again since I received the call from my dad is the memory of Poppy squeezing my hand while we sat side by side on the porch. I have moments when intense sadness overcomes me, but I don’t fight it. I let the tears fall. His last lesson, a gift he wasn’t aware of giving me, was how to sit with sadness. I am sitting with it now.
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