I don't think I shall ever be happy again ...

Last week, I lost my grandpa.  Sudden heart attack.  He was 67 years old.  Grandma found him lying dead on the kitchen floor.  It was already too late by the time the paramedics got there: grandpa was already gone.

The funeral was the day before yesterday.  All our relatives came.  I was one of the pallbearers.  It was one of the hardest things I ever had to do, but saying goodbye to grandpa Joe was the hardest of all.

I feel as if I've been hit by a wall of water:  a tsunami of grief.  It seems anything (or everything) can bring on the tears: I don't know when I have cried so much!

Grandpa Joe was my mom's father.  Poor mom is doing about as good as I am: we're both a pair of walking, talking zombies.  

It seems funny how death slows things down, or at least how much it takes out of a person.  The last time I had someone die in my family was when I was six.  I lost a cousin to a bee-sting.  He was allergic to the sting, but I really don't remember much about that, excepting mom saying that Dillon was dead because he'd gotten stung by a bee.  I didn't know bees could kill a person back then, but I know that now.

I still miss my cousin.  He was six years old too, the same age as me.

And now I have lost another member of my family: my beloved grandpa Joe.  He was certainly something special.  We were best buddies.  We'd go hunting together.  Fishing.  Hiking.  Camping.  To the store.  To baseball or football games.  We did evreything together.  We were getting ready to go hunting for fox last weekend when the world as we knew it was changed forever.

Now I will never get to go hunting (or do anything else) ever again with grandpa.  He's now in Heaven.  He will never come back to earth.  

Oh, God, how I miss Grandpa Joe!!