Memoir

     I remember, maybe two years ago, when I received the news. It wasn’t the good type of news that you get from a handwritten letter in the mail, or a party invitation. It was the bad news; something a child always dreads, like when their parent walks up to them and says, “Listen darling, we’ve got some bad news and some good news. Which would you like to hear first?” And of course, you can’t help but say good news first, and for a second you are overjoyed, only for it to vanish a moment later when the bad news is told.

     It had been an excellent morning, and surprisingly warm for the winter months, on the day my mom told me everything. But of course, the horrible damp cloth of the news had come to drape itself over my great day. I was sitting on the edge of my bed, just contemplating life, I suppose, when my mom walked in. Her face was flushed and tightly drawn against her pronounced cheekbones. Her throat kept making a strange sound like a “click click” like it does when she is upset. “Isobel,” she said, “I just got a phone call from grandma-“ “Did you tell her I said hi?” I interrupted. “Yes, but,” “But what?” I retorted. “Grandpa Harry has…he has…passed away”, she blurted out. As those words left her mouth, the world just disappeared, and it was just my mom and I, no one else. Her words echoed in my head like a very repetitive song. “Passed away, passed away, passed away.” My ears must have heard her correctly, but my heart didn’t believe it. How could he be gone, just like that? In a split second someone so important to me had vanished, so quickly my mind couldn’t comprehend it. My thoughts were ramming into each other, causing a ruckus in my head, but through all that I managed to croak, “how?” “Oh, darling, it was a heart attack, no one could have known it would happen,” my mom replied. It was then that reality crashed into me, and the truth, the sheer simplicity of his death, was all clear. That was it. He was gone and he wasn’t coming back. I was at a loss for words. I just let the tears flow down my face like a cascading waterfall. My memories of him raced through my mind. Us watching the Olympics together, when I couldn’t chose who I wanted to win gymnastics. When I finally beat him at chess, and he smiled so wide it lit up all the whole room, “I’m proud of you”, he had said. The time he read me his favorite book while I sat on his lap, and we both slowly fell asleep. All those times were the last I would ever have with him. My mom didn’t try to say everything was going to be fine because it wasn’t. She just held me close and let me cry.