My grandfather died today. A fitting end to a gorrible year. You know it's bad when getting assaulted by your boyfriend doesn't even make the top three events.


You can read all about the stages of grief online- anger, denial, guilt, acceptance, and some others I forgot. And it's all there, rolled up into a cascade of emotion that's overwhelming at times. But they don't tell you about the visceral side. They don't talk about crying so hard you get a headache and it hurts to close your eyes. About wanting to do nothing more than watch mindless television and, when you do, wondering if you've gotten it over it already and what that says about you. About wishing you could just be unconscious without the searing pain of trying to fall asleep. And they never mention how it feels to watch your mother listen to the phone silently, examining her face for any signs of good news, until finally the words, "were they able to determine a time of death?" escape her mouth and her face crumbles.

Reliving that moment haunts me almost as much as the death itself.

In some ways, the waiting was worse. Having to sit here, knowing that, a thousand miles away, your grandfather's phone is ringing but he's not picking up. And later, when your aunt tries to break into his house and finally has to call the police. You rationalize it; in all likelyhood, he's just asleep, or maybe he fell and couldn't get to the door. But in the back of your head, that voice, the thousand-to-one pessimist, whispers the thought "what if...?" You shut it out, as you've done a thousand times before. The past few hours have become a lifetime, all leading up to that final phone call, the one that will say everything's fine, he just took a nap. Except this time, your number's up.


My dad likes to joke, with his gallows humor, that after battling the Big Three- stroke, heart attack, cancer- he can climb Mount Everest. If there were an emotional equivalent, I'd be there. But I'm still me- less innocent, wearier, even defeated at some points- but still Lauren, in love with life, and optimist to the end.