Father’s Day Without My Grandfather

Femmy Rona

Losing someone is hard enough to deal and talking about it is even worse. I lost my first love in an accident ( I never admitted my love to him cuz I was way too scared of rejection and after losing him, I regretted it every single day. What If i had told him? What if? For years I longed for a hug from him which obviously wasn’t possible.

When he passed away I had newly moved to UK and he was in India. That meant I never got see him. It’s been 13 years now and i’m still choking. It took me a very long time to digest that he was gone and never coming back. I just couldn’t accept it and kept thinking that he’s not gone (guess because I didn’t attend the funeral). I didn’t realised when I was waving him goodbye to move to UK with my family, that it was gonna be the final one and that I wasn’t gonna see him again. If I knew, I would have hugged him and told him that I Loved him. I wish…..

It took me 13 years to visit his burial ground and see it face to face. This year when I went to Goa- India, I plucked the courage and went to the cemetary. My heart was racing, there was a storm inside me. I just couldn’t. I said a small prayer and tried to leave but when I was closing the cemetary door, there was something stopping me, as if he was calling me one last time and I had to run back in. They say time heals and here I am still crying and choking while typing this.

When he passed away, I stopped living completely. I had become a dead body but apart from my 2 best friends, nobody knew that i was all broken. My family did not approve of our close friendship (maybe that’s why I never expressed that I loved him) so they had no clue about my state. I wore mask during the days and at night I would put a blanket over my head and cry my heart out. I never let my family sense that I was falling apart. My whole world changed and nothing is same anymore. A lot has happened after that and I’m still here sharing my story with you which is a miracle in itself.

Sorry for the long story. But know that your pop is watching you from heaven and is always with you in your heart. Sending loads of hugs and love Brittany <3
Femmy Rona recently posted…Living With Anxiety And Its Consequences

Leslie

Wow! This has left me speechless with tears in my eyes. What eloquent writing full of true love, heart break, memories & hope. Memories and stories you will cherish forever. I lost my uncle (my dads only brother) when I was 14 from lung cancer. He’s one of the sole reasons I pursued my career as a nurse & the reason I live my life by the motto “don’t give up”. Those heartbreaks shape us man and it’s not always pretty.

I love the part where you talked about from a blogger/instagrammer standpoint you connect with the others who show their struggles and challenges. It’s hard because we have a platform. But it’s also beautiful because we have a platform where we can do so much more! I feel the same way above connecting with the vulnerable ones and I admire you for sharing a part of your heart.

Genevieve Cordery

I lost my Grampa in October of last year, so the wound is still fresh. He lived in CA, while I grew up in NC, so we never had the chance to get as close as you and your grandfather were. I wish that I had that. Even though we weren’t super close, I always enjoyed spending time with him when we visited. It started getting hard when we realized he had undiagnosed dementia. He would get violently angry and confused. Once, he forgot who I was and kept asking if I was a friend of my dad’s from college. When he was finally diagnosed, my Aunt was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer around the same time. Because my Grandma was alone she had no choice but to put him in a home and my grampa died three days later. My aunt followed a week after that. It’s hard when you don’t even get the chance to say goodbye, but I know they are watching over me every day, and it helps to think that they are in a better place and they’re no longer in pain.

Great post, Britt! It’s definitely reassuring to know that there are people out there going through something similar.

Genevieve | http://www.blueaugustine.com

Nikki

Thank you for sharing so much with us. I lost my grandparents almost 8 years ago and it still hurts every single day. much love to you and your fam ♥
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V

Thank you for sharing your story. It helped me not feel as alone right now. You see, I just lost my Grandpa a few days ago. To make matter worse, I didn’t even get to say goodbye. My father & his brothers decided to not tell him, or the rest of the family, that he had cancer…for years. So all the time I could have gone to see him in France is gone now. My father also decided that I couldn’t go there, see him via FaceTime, or speak to him over the phone after he went into the retirement home when he broke his shoulder. The retirement home is also where he passed away. He was only there for a few weeks. That is when my father finally decided to tell me that not only did my Grandpa have cancer, but that it had metastasized. Apparently the cancer had spread throughout his entire body. Up until that point, to my knowledge, there was nothing wrong with my Grandpa, except for the basic age related aches & pains of getting older. Everyone I had spoken to in the family had always assured me that my Grandpa was being “well taken care of” and that he had doctors & nurses coming to his house as needed, & that he had people come over daily to take care of different household chores, which also kept him company. He also had two sons, & two grandsons (my uncles & cousins), who were doctors, so why who was I to think any different?…I guess I just can’t get over the fact that no one told me that he had cancer for years, and that my father forbade me & prevented me from even speaking to him before he passed. All of that time that I could have spent with him, caring for him (I used to be in nursing), making new memories with him. Plus everyone in the family knew how close we were, so it just doesn’t make sense. I know that they were trying to keep it secret from him, but still, it’s not like I was going to “blow the secret”. What hurts the most though, is that my Grandpa was probably hurt that he didn’t hear from me in his last days, & probably wondered why. He & I always talked, or messaged at the very least, & all of a sudden he’s not hearing from me, & when he’s at his worst. That had to break his heart, which destroys my heart. I didn’t even know the name of the place where he was staying. My father wouldn’t tell me. And now with it being Father’s Day too, I’m just devastated. I would call my Grandpa every Father’s Day, especially since he was more of a father to me than my own father, & every time he would say, “it’s Father’s Day”, meaning that it’s not Grandfather’s Day, lol. Then I would explain to him that he’s still A father & that since he’s my Grandpa, I can call him for Father’s Day. I loved him, and still love him, so much. I’ll cherish our memories until the day I pass away. I miss him. Happy Father’s Day Grandpa. ❤️🙏🏻