I have wrestled and thought over this a lot for the past 6 weeks. Once the end of November rolls around, I spend weeks agonizing over the last few days Pablo spent with me. I thought it would stop as the years passed by, but it has not. 8 years ago today, Pablo went off to work and never came back.
In many ways, I marvel at the ways I've been able to recover and how I'm mostly the same person I was before. However, there is no denying that I have been profoundly changed from the me I was on Jan. 24, 2005. What a dumb, naive girl I was, thinking that nothing would ever damage the little world I'd built for myself. Death was something that happened to other people. Until it happened to me. Then it became my entire world.
Since then, I've lost my two grandmothers and my grandfather. But seeing someone die after a long illness (Papa Angel), or at the end of a long-ish life (all grandparents were in their 80s) is something completely different than seeing someone in his 30s plucked out of your life. There are moments when I wish for nothing more than to be able to talk to him, about his own death even. Read that again and see how absurd that sounds. I wish for that and the obvious thing - for him to be able to see the amazing little girl he gave me.
There's nothing left for me to do at the point but wallow in the memories for a few minutes and move on with my day. The final stage of grief is recognized as acceptance but I will gladly refute that with a Fuck No, I will never be okay with the fact that he's gone. But I guess I don't have to be, do I? Whether I accept it or not, he's not here, and Sam doesn't have her dad. Life sucks that way.
Reminder - go tell someone that they make your life suck just a little less. It's what makes hurtling through space on this rock worth it.
