Hard To Remember

When the Thought Comes...

The memories come in waves, seemingly triggered by either nothing or everything. In particular, how someone'd hurt me and how angry it makes me that they even exist, sometimes. Other times it's the pain of loss... I'll see The Price Is Right or The View come on TV and cry because they were part of his morning routine. How he'd sit at the table with his deck of cards and a cigarette and watch those shows as I slept on the couch with Casey curled up on the floor next to me. I'd wake up sometimes to him watching other things like NASCAR if it was that time of year. He was a megafan of those kind of things. I remember how he obsessed over Sugarland

and each new CD that came out he'd run off to buy and we'd sit in his truck and listen to it. He used to make egg sandwiches in the mornings for my brother and I. It's a nostalgic taste i still havent been able to recreate. I remember wishing I could just live with him, especially when my brother would have meltdowns and my mother would binge on drugs or alcohol. She and my grandfather had a pretty bad relationship from before I was even born, but my grandfather was good at hiding it from us for our sake. He had this old ford truck that he was always buying parts for to fix it up on his own. It was a rusty old stick shift that he started to sand down and prime to repaint it but he never finished it before he moved so he just stopped there. I remember how it was harder for him to handle as he started to get sick. He was leaving my grandmothers house after a family event to head home but he was struggling to turn the wheel and hit the green cable box in the front yard. I was so worried hed get hurt on his way home. I think thats when he stopped driving. He would never tell me what was wrong other then he had a bad hip; but he was still struggling to do the simplest of tasks even after he got his hip replaced.
My fiance was with me that last time we went to the VA with him. He'd gone to the bathroom and the doctor came to me in the waiting room. She told me to expect the worst and that he was going to the Heroe's Hall, which is basically where our veterans go to die in the VA. He never told me how bad off he was. He showed me the tubes coming out of his back and told me they had to bypass his bladder for him to urinate and i figured that meant they had a plan for him because he couldnt live with tube coming out of him in his age. I stayed with him for weeks before that last trip, cleaning the area around the tubes and helping do things around the house. The doctor had told me to hold it together for his sake and he came out of the bathroom just after, right as the shock was beginning to set in. Why didn't he ever tell me he was THAT sick? He never thought to mention that he aparently had cancer and it had begun to spread. We watched him go into his room said goodbye and that we loved him and we left. I started sobbing before i even got past the nurses station. I still had to get to the elevators and through the rest of the hospital before reaching the parking lot. It felt like I'd walked miles with tears blurring my vision and stumbling over myself whilst clinging to my fiance. He had given me his wallet and house keys. He knew he wasnt going to go home this time but he hadnt the heart to tell me. I shouldve went back to visit him when my grandmother did but i had to finish senior year of highschool and we just had a break.
I remember my grandmother calling me just as I got home from school. She told me he wanted to talk to me, and my heart sank as soon as I heard him. He sounded weak and raspy and he was so doped up on pain medicine he was slurring his words.
He just kept repeating how he was so sorry.