One Big Al

I don’t even know where to really start, but my granddad died last week.

I’m trying to think of something really introspective to say, something profound that would make me feel better, but I got nothing. Everyone knows that things get better with time, but that mentality doesn’t do much for someone who focuses more on the here and now rather than the future. I guess I expected to feel relatively fine considering all the close calls we had over the last three years but this whole experience was nothing like what I thought it was going to be… its been really difficult and fatiguing. 

The lowest point so far was the day after he passed while I was eating breakfast by the window and looking out over the city. I’m on the 32nd floor so even if it’s not a clear day the view I get in the morning is truly something to behold. I was thinking about showing off my new place and then without even realizing I thought about how much my granddad would really like the view from my balcony. It was just for a split second but I forgot that he was gone and that moment of recollection felt like someone had deflated my heart. I haven’t cried that much in a really long time. 

After my granddads first big stroke I was really worried that I might not be able to tell him how I felt about him, and that initial shock spurred me into action. I got to tell him while he was still alive that if I can get to his age and be as half as good as man that he is, then I’ll have know that I made all the right decisions in life. My granddad was the effing best and I think everyone I ever met knew it. I think one of the things I liked best was the look on his face when the gears were turning in his head, he was a man with a lot of big words in his vocabulary but when those gears stopped turning he always had a torpedo of a rebuttal for any point I might have made in one of our debates. 

Everything I’ve tried to write here has just been so forced I’m not even going to bother to proof read this, but I’d also like to note that not everything is doom and gloom in my life. I’ve moved in with charlie, my hours at work are slightly better and I feel like I’m getting a better at photography  too. I’m so happy that big al was my granddad, I’m going to miss him so much. 

I also wanted to take some shots of my grandads house, they might be kinda boring to most people but they all mean a lot to me.