grandpa

i can hardly believe that june is almost over & this is only my 4th post of the month. i've never been so dry for so long. i've seen other bloggers go through dry writing spells & thought it would never happen to me. i'm such a foolish, naive girl sometimes.

my brain is dry like sand paper. uncooked pasta. my mouth after eating a scoop of chocolate milk powder. deserts. a fence post in the sun. my skin after too many zit cream applications. . . . i've got nothing else & those weren't even particularly colorful. i'm just dry. parched. drained. arid. depleted.

my grandpa died thursday. it's been a long time in coming. he was suffering and had so many things wrong with his body at the end that i'm sure it was a relief for it to end. i believe he's in heaven now and he's probably running around on the leg that he lost last year, happy to be mobile and energetic again.

the last time i saw him was about a year and a half ago and he was still riding around on his scooter, quacking to the ducks at the pond. he'd roll up and start quacking & ducks would come flying straight in, like they were his own personal pets. brooke loved riding with him on his scooter, around the mall or the botanical gardens or the neighborhood. he always made funny noises and did silly things to make the kids laugh.

grandpa feeding brooke snacks before a wedding in 2006.

sitting together in the garden in 2009.

his final moments. holding his daughter's hand.

i'll be leaving in a few days to drive the 13 hrs with my parents & the brookster to attend the funeral and visit the relatives. when we get back here, we'll be back to trying to find our new normal. everything seems to be shaped differently now.

we'll miss you, grandpa.