We sit around the table in the dining room, wondering where to begin. No one ever taught us to prepare for this. We didn’t see this coming. It wasn’t supposed to end. We miss him terribly and keep expecting him to come down the stairs. He’ll shout that the Dolphins game is on and offer us beers. He’ll put on his leather jacket and walk downtown to the diner. They loved him there. We love him here. Our grandfather.
None of us have ever written a eulogy in our lives. Our tears have not dried up but we have to be strong. The rest of our family is falling apart. They’re depending on us to be alright.
All we know is that we want to make him proud. We stretch in our chairs and stare at the blank computer screen in front of us. The cursor blinks, daring us to put down a word. We pull on our ties, loosening them from around our necks. We pull the hems of our dresses down. We don’t feel more comfortable. Not in the least.
Our mothers are in the kitchen, sitting at the table with our grandmother. We can hear tiny strains of conversation drifting around the corner of the hallway. One of our mothers can’t stop crying. The two other sisters have glossy eyes, swollen and thick with sadness. There is a heaviness in the house that has never been here before. Our grandmother doesn’t shed one tear. We haven’t seen her break down all day. She was composed at the hospital as her husband slipped away. She held his hand and spoke softly of him. Our grandfather was a wonderful man.
We are cousins, bonded by the luck of the draw. By blood lines and circumstance. We are together tonight unexpectedly.
“He was the love of my life,” our grandmother says in a hollow voice. “He was my best friend.”
Outside, it snows. A fine blanket of powder is covering the yard of our grandparents’ house. We watch the flakes fall outside the dining room window.
Our grandfather always enjoyed this weather. He shoveled the sidewalks and put up the Christmas lights every year. He taught us to walk. He snuck us extra five dollar bills when our parents weren’t looking. He’d be so proud when we finished everything on our plates.
Everyone in town was crazy about him.
He and our grandmother would sit on their porch in the summer, rocking back and forth on their chair as the sun dipped down below the horizon line. They would wave to people they knew as they rode by on their bikes. They were happy.
We talk of these memories. Some of them make us smile and some of them make us cry. The page begins to fill with everything we can remember. The snow continues to fall outside, accumulating more with every minute that passes. When we finish our task, we begin to write the words down on paper. Something about the ink makes it feel more permanent. Our reminiscing is inscribed on a torn sheet of paper.
He lives on that page. Alive, content and joyous. He hasn’t gone anywhere.
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