I cannot tell a coherent story to save my life. I obviously did not get this from my grandfather, because he told at least six stories every time I saw him. He passed away five days ago. It has all been rather unbelievable and it’s occupying most of my waking hours, but I’m finding a lot of solace in remembering all the stories he told. He would want them to be his legacy. He teased me all the time about a story from a beach trip right after my little sister was born. He bought my older sister a shirt that said “Big Sister,” and one for me that said “Middle Sister,” and he was so tickled that he was able to find a shirt for a middle sister. But when he gave it to me, I cried and cried because I wanted to be a “Big Sister” too (he ended up going back and getting me the one I wanted). He would repeat stories a lot without realizing, but I would ask him purposefully to repeat the time my grandmother accidentally cross-country skied across an active army airfield because I loved the story so much. One of my favorites was the time he and my dad almost exploded trying to fix a gas line under the house. They had to crawl backwards, yelling and cussing, trying to get out of the crawl space.

He never would have almost exploded his five granddaughters or three great-grandchildren. In my dad’s eulogy, he talks about how my grandfather changed more diapers as Grandaddy than he ever did as Dad. My dad says it’s because he was trying to be “good” as he got older so he could get into heaven. I just think he was made to be a grandfather. He was a great military officer and a fine business man, but I know he found a special satisfaction in helping raise us and being there for all the big or small moments. He was as proud to watch my older sister graduate from his alma mater as he was to feed my little cousin a bottle. I know he was proud of me- the second-to-last time I ever spoke to him, he told me so. I feel lucky that I had a sort of niche with him. I could never make him laugh like my sisters could or bring him great-grandchildren like my cousin did, but I study German and history, and he lived in Germany for years and was a history buff himself. We would talk away long afternoons. Sometimes I recorded our conversations, and I don’t know if listening to them now makes grieving easier or harder.

My other grandfather died when I was thirteen. I was a wreck and hardly remember anything about grieving him. I don’t remember people coming over to the house and bringing food, like they are now, or how my mom grieved, who was worlds more devastated than I was. At times I think I’ve yet to start grieving this grandfather who’s just passed, because it was such a shock. He had a sudden brain bleed on May 5 and passed away on May 16. I sat next to him at church on May 4, went to his house and listened to his stories on April 30, and he drove me home from college on April 27. It makes no sense with regards to the timing or to his health, because he never seemed as old as his 79 years. He played golf avidly and practiced baseball with my cousin and worked in his beautiful yard constantly. So it’s been easy to say, “it hasn’t hit me yet,” when people ask me how I’m doing. But then I catch myself doing mindless things like watching the water go down the drain. This, I remember. This staring. The night I was told my other grandfather died, I sat at my desk and stared at nothing until everyone had gone to sleep. All I remember from his funeral was staring at the molding on the walls. Once this stage of disbelief passes, I reckon the toughest grief begins when they’ve been gone so long that you start to miss them.

I try to think about everything hopeful people have written about grief: the iconic, “what is grief, if not love persevering?” or the Henry Scott Holland, “death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away into the next room.” But really all I can think of is the Richard Siken, “you are a fever I am learning to live with, and everything is happening at the wrong end of a very long tunnel.” I feel that I’ve removed myself from everything and I’m looking at it in-the-round, walking around it and observing it objectively. Objectively, it was not supposed to happen this way, and things are not the way they are supposed to be right now. It’s square pegs. At my grandmother’s house, people have been sitting in his recliner or his chair at the dining room table. My visits there aren’t spent listening to his army stories; they never will be again. My close family has been over there for days straight to keep my grandmother company and eat meals with her. I count everybody when I set the plates at the table – me, two sisters, mom, dad, grandmother, aunt, two cousins, two kids – and his absence startles my muscle memory. Every time I’m in that house, I am out with lanterns looking for him. I know my grandmother feels it more, because she has to live a solitary life there after 58 years of companionship. I don’t have any words to express that loneliness.

I know she has found comfort in our family and friends. I definitely have. My grandfather had a big impact on a lot of people, and everyone has been sharing their own stories about him often. It makes it seem less tragic that people are able to speak of him without going to pieces. His favorite saying, “just another day in paradise,” keeps coming up. He said it all the time, which is funny because if you knew him at all, you know he was pessimistic with a short temper and complained a lot about the general state of the world. His life was not always paradise. But he worked hard to make it so, and I know it is now.

You can read his obituary here.