My grandfather in Wales passed away on the 18th. He had prostate cancer, and a bad heart, and in the end, the chemo weakened his heart and he had a heart attack.
My step-dad and my mom have been calling from Moscow, and I've been calling Wales and Moscow in return. Thank God for Skype, else it would have been incredibly expensive, since we spoke for hours.
Everyone keeps telling me that is okay that I can't go to the funeral, that everyone understands that I live too far away to make it to the funeral on Wednesday. Everytime someone says it though, I feel more and more guilty.
I was in Subway the other day, and a man asked for "no veggies" on his sandwich, and I just started crying, because my mother always scolded my grandfather for not eating his vegetables, and that his poor diet would "be the death of him."
I said good-bye to my grandfather two years ago. We went out there for a week and a half, between leaving my job and starting graduate school. He had just been diagnosed, and everyone said he had a couple of months left, at most. He outlived their expectations, and passed away four hours short of his 86th birthday.
Still it hurts, that I won't be able to say good-bye at the funeral. I guess that is why we like our rituals, because it gives everyone a proper time and place to say and do what they feel. Maybe on Wednesday I'll go find a pub and lift a pint for Grandpa, since besides building houses, he loved his beer.
