Thoughts I Haven't Thought in a While

I really wasn't expecting this to come out.

But here I am, taking each random chunk of time I have out of my increasingly busy schedule, writing about it. I told myself "no blogging, you have too much to do," but I wanted to get this down and I guess going to bed a little later won't hurt.

On the shuttle this morning, the song "Airplanes" by Local Natives came on my iPod, and I surprised myself by started to get choked up.

I hadn't listened to it in a while, but it is important to me because it reminds me so much of my grandpa, my dad's dad. I remember one day I was listening to it and all of the sudden I heard what the lyrics were actually saying. The first line says "The desk where you sit inside of a frame made of wood," and I was sitting at a desk on which a picture of my grandfather sits inside of a frame made of wood. I more intently than ever before listened to the rest of the lyrics, which go on to say:

"I keep those chopsticks you had from when you taught abroad in Japan

I did not know you as well as my father knew you

Every question you took the time to sit and look it up in the encyclopedia

It sounds like we would have had a great deal to say to each other

I bet when I leave my body for the sky the wait will be worth it

I love it all

So much I call

I want you back"

It works better when you have all the words and the music together. Obviously I know best the relationship we had, and I won't take the time to go through how everything connects, but the song just seemed to fit so well that now I can't listen to it without thinking about him. I feel like I've never really said or written much about the deaths of my grandpas, which happened during my junior and then senior years of high school, and I think I need to get some things out. I apologize, because this may be long and jumbled and very personal, but this is kind of my journal. I hope I am remembering everything right.

The fall of my junior year, both of my grandpas were in the hospital. My mom's dad had a second stroke and, to be honest, I can't even remember why my dad's dad was there. But he was very old and I think he had a lot of problems. I was pretty sick at this time too, so I didn't go see either of them in the hospital.

I don't even remember the last time I saw my dad's dad.

I was redoing my bedroom and all the heavy furniture was moved to the middle of the room. I went down there are cried for a few minutes.

One morning my mom told me my dad's dad had died. I drove to school and cried for less than a minute. It was the second of three times I remember crying. All three times in my memory were when the first grandpa that died. I can't even remember crying for the other one.

The exact feelings I have towards my grandpas is somehow directly proportional to the way I feel about my respective parents. I don't know why this is.

Although it is in some ways it is a sad occasion, the first funeral is one of my best memories.

I got to play the piano and see my family.

The viewing was in Idaho. I knew hardly anyone. My sister and I made a playlist for it.

Although my mom's dad recovered from his stroke, he was different. He couldn't talk as well, or do things as independently, but most noticeable was the change in his countenance. He seemed more childlike and innocent, somehow.

He did really well, considering, but eventually he ended up back at the hospital. We all knew he probably wouldn't be back out.

I was in phlebotomy class when my dad called me and told me to come to the hospital because they were going to stop his pacemaker, the thing that was keeping him alive. All of my immediate family was there, and aunts and uncles, but few if any other cousins. My dad's sister, who is a nurse, stopped the pacemaker, and he died almost immediately.

I went with two of my sisters to get some food, and then we went to the parkway and walked around for a long time. I haven't been back there since.

All of this was going on during the end of school, and life was pretty hectic.

I got to see a lot of family. I have good memories of this whole thing as well.

We sang a song as an entire family at the funeral and my sisters and I, right in the front, started laughing because someone messed up or something.

I played my viola. I haven't played it since.

I hope someday that I can know my grandparents as equals. Somehow I feel like I've only known them in a very distinctly unequal kind of relationship. This is not a negative thing at all; grandparents deserve respect and I was young for the time I knew them, but I want to know them just as people as well as grandparents.

I never thought about that last thing I wrote until I wrote it. I don't think a lot of people really know me, especially in my extended family, because I am so quiet around them. I don't know why I am, I always have been. I wonder what they think about me.

Thank you and God bless.