By Xander Eddings
Everyone knows the pain of losing someone.
The agonizing, harrowing, gut-wrenching pain as you watch a person drift away, leaving you feeling empty again. How your chest tightens whenever they’re mentioned, and how you have a stone in your throat as soon as you’re supposed to mention them yourself.
How you wish it would all end, and the blissful memories would melt away so we didn’t have to reminisce on these untroubled, carefree moments and find ourselves burrowing further into the aching hurt in our minds. A gash so deep in your mentality, that you find yourself feeling the physical throb of a conceptual laceration.
I, too, have lived this excruciating pain, many times. The most notable being when I lost my great-grandfather.
He was a good man, a role model I often turn to as I make important decisions. I remember the sight of him in a hospital bed, set up in our TV room, his feet drawn towards the big window, opening his view to the vast forest that surrounds our house.
I remember not his exact words, but I can paraphrase: “I am ready to go, and I am happy as long as I get this beautiful view and my beautiful family.”
I did not hear this directly from him, I heard it from my grandma, his daughter.
I did not live there at the time, and I regret not being able to spend that much time with him during his last moments. We were not the closest; we didn’t talk much and we didn’t have much bonding experience, yet I still respected him. He had moved from East America, and met my Abuela, an immigrant from Mexico. They built a life together, built their own house and had children together in that very place, while he also became a father to my Abuela’s children, who were not his own.
Even if he is not my grandmother’s biological father, he was still there. For her, and for me. He is my grandfather in my heart and in my mind, all the way. He was such a large role model in all of our lives.
He had an amazing way of musical expression, and this heavily influenced my entire family. Almost every single one of my family members on that side can either sing or play an instrument.
I remember the first time I visited him. He looked sick. Weak. I had never in my whole life perceived my great-grandfather to be weak. He had always been the kindest, bravest person I knew, even if we didn’t talk much.
But there he was. His smooth voice rang in my ears, but I still find myself gradually forgetting the sound, wishing it was still present in my life.
He was tired, and I could tell. Everyone could tell. People kept telling me he’d be OK, and that I shouldn’t worry. I believed them. I believed them and guess what I got. Hurt. I got hurt.
I’m angry. Angry at everyone. Angry at the world. I’ve always been angry. It’s my family’s fault for lying and saying he’d be OK. It’s the doctors‘ fault for not giving him the right meds. It’s the priests’ fault for not praying hard enough, or not blessing him well enough.
I have all these things running through my head when I write about this. I always jump to blame other people, but in the end it’s no one’s fault.
Death is a natural thing. A natural thing that not many can get used to. And some never forget. But people come, and they go. Though you may never get used to it, you will learn to live with it. Learn to accept it and stop blaming the people you perceive to be at fault.
Everyone loses people. It happens more often than you might think.
Next time, don’t overthink it. Don’t blame people. Don’t wish to forget the moments you had with them. Just try your best to be okay with the thought of them gone, and then eventually, you will be OK.
Written in loving memory of my papa, David Vanderlip.
Xander Eddings, 14 at the time she wrote this, is completing the eighth grade at Sweet Home Junior High. She wrote this memoir about her great-grandfather, a former Sweet Home School Board member, for a creative writing class.